SHAKESPEARE   AND   THE   MODERN 
STAGE 


.SHAKESPEARE    AND 
THE  MODERN  STAGE 

WITH   OTHER   ESSAYS 


BY   SIDNEY  LEE 

ATJTHOE  OF    "  GKEAT   ENGLISHMEN   OF  THE  SIXTEENTH   CENTURY, 
"a  LIFE  OF  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE,"   ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1906 


5> 


COPYBIGHT,    1900,    BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNEE'.S  SONS 


Published,  October,  1906 


TROW  OIRECTORV 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANr 

NEW  YORK 


PREFACE 

The  eleven  papers  which  are  collected  here  were 
written  between  1899  and  1905.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  one,  entitled  ''Aspects  of  Shakespeare's  Phil- 
osophy," which  is  now  printed  for  the  first  time, 
all  were  published  in  periodicals  in  the  course  of 
those  six  years.  The  articles  treat  of  varied  aspects 
of  Shakespearean  drama,  its  influences  and  tradi- 
tions, but  I  think  that  all  may  be  credited  with 
sufficient  unity  of  intention  to  warrant  their  com- 
bination in  a  single  volume.  Their  main  endeavour 
is  to  survey  Shakespearean  drama  in  relation  to 
modern  life,  and  to  illustrate  its  Hving  force  in 
current  affairs.  Even  in  the  papers  which  embody 
researches  in  sixteenth-  or  seventeenth-century  dra- 
matic history,  I  have  sought  to  keep  in  view  the 
bearings  of  the  past  on  the  present.  A  large  portion 
of  the  book  discusses,  as  its  title  indicates,  methods 
of  representing  Shakespeare  on  the  modern  stage. 
The  attempt  is  there  made  to  define,  in  the  fight  of 
experience,  the  conditions  which  are  best  calculated 
to  conserve  or  increase  Shakespeare's  genuine  vitafity 
in  the  theatre  of  our  own  day. 

In  revising  the  work  for  the  press,  I  have  deemed 
it  advisable  to  submit  the  papers  to  a  somewhat 
rigorous  verbal  revision.     Errors  have  been  corrected, 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

chronological  ambiguities  due  to  lapse  of  time  have 
been  removed,  passages  have  been  excised  in  order 
to  avoid  repetition,  and  reference  to  ephemeral 
events  which  deserve  no  permanent  chronicle  have 
been  omitted.  But,  substantially,  the  articles  retain 
the  shape  in  which  they  were  originally  penned. 
The  point  of  view  has  undergone  no  modification. 
In  the  essays  deaUng  \\iih.  the  theatres  of  our  own 
time,  I  have  purposel}^  refrained  from  expanding  or 
altering  argument  or  illustration  by  citing  Shake- 
spearean performances  or  other  theatrical  enter- 
prises which  have  come  to  birth  since  the  papers  were 
first  w^ritten.  In  the  last  year  or  two  there  have 
been  several  Shakespearean  revivals  of  notable  in- 
terest, and  some  new  histrionic  triumphs  have  been 
won.  Within  the  same  period,  too,  at  least  half  a 
dozen  new  plays  of  serious  Hterary  aim  have  gained 
the  approval  of  contemporary  critics.  These  features 
of  current  dramatic  history  are  welcome  to  play- 
goers of  literary  tastes;  but  I  have  attempted  no 
survey  of  them,  because  signs  are  lacking  that  any 
essential  change  has  been  wrought  by  them  in  the 
general  theatrical  situation.  My  aim  is  to  deal  with 
dominant  principles  which  underlie  the  past  and 
present  situation,  rather  than  with  particular  episodes 
or  personaUties,  the  real  value  of  which  the  future 
has  yet  to  determine. 

My  best  thanks  are  due  to  my  friend  Sir  James 
Knowles,  the  proprietor  and  editor  of  The  Nineteenth 
Century  and  After,  for  permission  to  reproduce  the 
four  articles,  entitled  respectively,  ''Shakespeare  and 
the  Modern  Stage,"  ''Shakespeare  in  Oral  Tradition," 
"Shakespeare  in  France,"  and  "The  Commemora- 
tion of  Shakespeare  in  London."     To  Messrs  Smith, 


PREFACE  ix 

Elder  &  Co.,  I  am  indebted  for  permission  to  print 
here  the  articles  on  ''Mr  Benson  and  Shakespearean 
Drama/'  and  ''Shakespeare  and  Patriotism,"  both 
of  which  originally  appeared  in  The  Cornhill  Maga- 
zine. The  paper  on  "Pepys  and  Shakespeare"  was 
first  printed  in  the  Fortnightly  Review;  that  on 
"Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethan  Playgoer"  in 
"An  EngHsh  Miscellany,  presented  to  Dr  Furnivall 
in  honour  of  his  seventy-fifth  birthday"  (1901) ;  that 
on  "The  Municipal  Theatre"  in  the  New  Liberal 
Review;  and  that  on  "A  Peril  of  Shakespearean 
Research"  in  The  Author.  The  proprietors  of  these 
pubUcations  have  courteously  given  me  permission 
to  include  the  articles  in  this  volume.  The  essay  on 
"Aspects  of  Shakespeare's  Philosophy"  was  pre- 
pared for  the  purposes  of  a  popular  lecture,  and  has 
not  been  in  type  before. 

In  a  note  at  the  foot  of  the  opening  page  of  each 
essay,  I  mention  the  date  when  it  was  originally 
published.  An  analytical  list  of  contents  and  an 
index  will,  I  hope,  increase  any  utiHty  which  may 
attach  to  the  volume. 

SIDNEY  LEE. 

\st  October,  1906. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface vii 


I 

Shakespeare  and  the  Modern   Stage 

I.   The  Perils  of  the  Spectacular  Method  of  Production  1 

II.   The  Need  for  Simplifying  Scenic  Appliances  .         .  4 

III.   Consequences  of  Simplification.     The  Attitude  of  the 

Shakespearean  Student    ......  7 

IV.  The   Pecuniary  Experiences  of   Charles   Kean  and 

Sir  Henry  Irving     .......  9 

V.  The  Experiment  of  Samuel  Phelps    .         .         .         .        11 

p  VI.  The  Rightful  Supremacy  of  the  Actor      .         .         .        12 
VII.  The  Example  of  the  French  and  German  Stage      .        16 
VIII.   Shakespeare's  Reliance  on  the  "  Imaginary  Forces  " 

of  the  Audience        . 18 

IX.  The  Patriotic  Argument  for  the  Production  of 
Shakespeare's  Plays  constantly  and  in  their 
variety  on  the  English  Stage  .        .        .        .        28 

II 

Shakespeare   and  the   Elizabethan   Playgoer 

I.  An  Imaginary  Discovery  of  Shakespeare's  Journal  .  25 
II.  Shakespeare  in  the  Role  of  the  Ghost  on  the  First 

Production  of  Hamlet  in   1602       ....  27 

III.   Shakespeare's  Popularity  in  the  Elizabethan  Theatre  29 


xii  CONTENTS 

Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethan  Playgoer — continued 

PAGE 

IV.  At  Court  in  1594. 31 

V.  The  Theatre  an  Innovation  in  Elizabethan  England  36 
VI.  Elizabethan  Methods  of  Production   ....  38 
VII.  The  Contrast  between  the  Elizabethan  and  the  Mod- 
ern Methods 43 

VIII.  The  Fitness  of  the  Audience  an  Essential   Element 

in  the  Success  of  Shakespeare  on  the  Stage  .        .  46 

III 

Shakespeare   in  Oral   Tradition 
I.  The  Reception  of  the  News  of  Shakespeare's  Death       49 
II.   The  Evolution  in  England  of  Formal  Biography      .        51 
III.  Oral  Tradition  concerning  Shakespeare  in  Theatri- 
cal  Circles         ........        57 

IV.  The  Testimonies  of  Seventeenth-century  Actors       .        61 
V.  Sir  William  D'Avenant's-  Devotion  to  Shakespeare's 

Memory 69 

VI.  Early  Oral  Tradition  at  Stratford-on-Avon      .         .        73 
VII.  Shakespeare's     Fame     among     Seventeenth-century 

Scholars  and  Statesmen 78 

VIII.  Nicholas  Rowe's  Place  among  Shakespeare's  Biog- 
raphers. The  Present  State  of  Knowledge  re- 
specting Shakespeare's  Life 79 

IV 
Pepys  and   Shakespeare 
I.   Pepys  the  Microcosm  of  the  Average  Playgoer        .        82 
II.   The  London  Theatres  of  Pepys's  Diary   ...        85 
III.  Pepys's    Enthusiasm    for    the     Later    Elizabethan 

Drama 90 

IV.   Pepys's  Criticism  of  Shakespeare:     His  Admiration 

of  Betterton  in  Shakespearean  Roles     .         .         .        93 
V.  The  Garbled  Versions  of  Shakespeare  on  the  Stage 

of  the  Restoration 102 

VI.  The  Saving  Grace  of  the  Restoration  Theatre. 
Betterton's  Masterly  Interpretation  of  Shake- 
speare          109 


CONTENTS  xiii 


Mr  Benson  and  Shakespearean  Drama 

PAGE 

I.  A  Return  to  the  Ancient  Ways Ill 

II.  The    Advantages    of    a    Constant    Change    of    Pro- 
gramme.     The    Opportunities    offered    Actors    by 
Shakespeare's   Minor  Characters.     John  of  Gaunt        113 
III.  The  Benefit  of  Performing  the  Play  of  Hamlet  with- 
out Abbreviation         .         .         .         .         .         .         .        Il6 

IV.  Mr  Benson  as  a  Trainer  of  Actors.     The  Succession 

to   Phelps 119 

VI 

The  Municipal  Theatre 

I.  The  True  Aim  of  the  Municipal  Theatre  .        .        .        122 

II.  Private  Theatrical  Enterprise  and  Literary  Drama. 
The  Advantages  and  Disadvantages  of  the  Actor- 
Manager  System.     The  Control  of  the  Capitalist  .         123 

III.   Possibilities  of  the  Artistic  Improvement  of  Theat- 
rical Organisation  in  England  .         .         .         .         .        127 

IV.   Indications  of  a  Demand  for  a  Municipal  Theatre    .        129 
V.  The  Teaching  of  Foreign  Experience.     The  Exam- 
ple of  Vienna 134 

VI.  The  Conditions  of  Success  in  England     .        .        .        138 

VII 

Aspects   of   Shakespeare's   Philosophy 

I.  The  Conflicting  Attitudes  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare 

to  Formal  Philosophy 142 

II.  Shakespeare's  "  Natural  "  Philosophy.     Concealment 

of  his  Personality  in  his  Plays        .         .         .         .        148 
III.   His  lofty  Conception  of  Public  Virtue.     Frequency 

of  his  Denunciation  of  Royal  "  Ceremony"   .         .        152 

IV.  The  Duty  of  Obedience  to  Authority  .         .         .         .        l6l 

V.  The  Moral  Atmosphere  of  Shakespearean  Drama     .        l6i 


xiv  CONTEiNTS 


Aspects  of  Shakespkare's  Philosophy — continued 


PAGE 


VI.   Shakespeare's    Insistence    on    the    Freedom    of    the 

Will 166 

VII.  His  Humour  and  Optimism l68 


VIII 

Shakespeare  and  Patriotism 

I.   The   Natural   Instinct   of   Patriotism.      Dangers   of 

Excess  and  Defect 170 

II.  An  Attempt  to  Co-ordinate  Shakespeare's  Detached 
Illustrations  of  the  Working  of  Patriotic  Senti- 
ment. His  Ridicule  of  Bellicose  Ecstasy.  Corio- 
lanus  illustrates  the  Danger  of  Disavowing  Patri- 
otism   172 

III.  Criticism    of    One's    Fellow-countrymen    Consistent 

with  Patriotism.  Shakespeare  on  the  Political 
History  of  England.  The  Country's  Dependence 
on  the  Command  of  the  Sea.  The  Respect  due 
to  a  Nation's  Traditions  and  Experience        .         .         179 

IV.  Shakespeare's  Exposure  of  Social  Foibles  and  Errors        18-i 

V.   Relevance  of  Shakespeare's  Doctrine  of  Patriotism 

to  Current  Affairs 187 


IX 

A   Peril    of    Shakespearean    Research 

I.  An  Alleged  Meeting  of  Peele,  Ben  Jonson,  Alleyn, 

and  Shakespeare  at  "  The  Globe"  in  I6OO  .        .        188 

II.  The  Fabrication  by  George  Steevens  in  1763  of  a 

Letter  signed  "  G.  Peel" 190 

III.  Popular  Acceptance  of  the  Forgery.  Its  Unchal- 
lenged Circulation  through  the  Eighteenth,  Nine- 
teenth, and  Twentieth  Centuries     .        .        .        .        194* 


CONTENTS  XV 


Shakespeare  in  France 

PAGE 

I.  Amicable   Literary   Relations   between   France   and 
England    from    the    P'ourteenth   to    the    Present 

Century 198 

II.  M.  Jusserand  on  Shakespeare  in  France.  French 
Knowledge  of  English  Literature  in  Shake- 
speare's day.  Shakespeare  in  Eighteenth-cen- 
tury France.  Eulogies  of  Victor  Hugo  and 
Dumas  pere 201 

III.  French  Misapprehensions  of  Shakespeare's  Tragic 

Conceptions.     Causes  of  the  Misunderstanding  .        206 

IV.  Charles  Xodier's  Sympathetic  Tribute.     The  Rarity 

of  his  Pensees  de  Shakespeare,  1801    .         .         .        211 


XI 

The  Commemoration  of  Shakespeare   in   London 

I.  Early  Proposals  for  a  National  Memorial  of  Shake- 
speare in  London 214« 

II.  The  Cenotaph  in  Westminster  Abbey      .         .  .  215 

III.  The  Failure  of  the  Nineteenth-century  Schemes  .  217 

IV.  The  National  Memorial  at  Stratford-on-Avon  .  .  219 
V.  Shakespeare's  Association  with  London   .         .  .  226 

VI.  The  Value  of  a  London  Memorial  as  a  Symbol  of 

his  Universal  Influence 228 

VII.  The  Real  Significance  of  Milton's  Warning  against 

a  Monumental  Commemoration  of  Shakespeare  .        230 
VIII.  The  Undesirability  of  making  the  Memorial  serve 

Utilitarian  Purposes 235 

IX.  The  Present  State  of  the  Plastic  Art.  The  Im- 
perative Need  of  securing  a  Supreme  Work  of 
Sculpture 236 

Index       ....»...*..        245 


^      or  THT 

UNIVERSITY 

or 

SHAKESPEARE     AND     THE 
MODERN     STAGE 

I 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE  ^ 

I 

Without  ''the  living  comment  and  interpretation  of 
the  theatre,"  Shakespeare's  work  is,  for  the  rank  and 
file  of  mankind,  "a  deep  well  without  a  wheel  or  a 
windlass."  It  is  true  that  the  whole  of  the  spiritual 
treasures  which  Shakespeare's  dramas  hoard  will 
never  be  disclosed  to  the  mere  playgoer,  but  ''a 
large,  a  very  large,  proportion  of  that  indefinite  all" 
may  be  revealed  to  him  on  the  stage,  and,  if  he  be  no 
patient  reader,  will  be  revealed  to  him  nowhere  else. 
There  are  earnest  students  of  Shakespeare  who 
scorn  the  theatre  and  arrogate  to  themselves  in  the 
library,  often  with  some  justification,  a  greater 
capacity  for  apprehending  and  appreciating  Shake- 
speare than  is  at  the  command  of  the  ordinary  play- 
goer or  actor.  But  let  Sir  Oracle  of  the  study,  how- 
ever full  and  deep  be  his  knowledge,  ''use  all  gently." 
Let  him  bear  in  mind  that  his  vision  also  has  its 
limitations,  and  that  student,  actor,  and  spectator 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  The  Nineteenth  Century, 
January,  ipOO. 


2       SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  all  alike  exploring  a 
measureless  region  of  philosophy  and  poetry,  ''round 
which  no  comprehension  has  yet  drawn  the  hne  of 
circumspection,  so  as  to  say  to  itself  'I  have  seen 
the  whole. ' "  Actor  and  student  may  look  at  Shake- 
speare's text  from  different  points  of  \dew;  but  there 
is  always  as  reasonable  a  chance  that  the  efficient 
actor  may  disclose  the  full  significance  of  some 
speech  or  scene  which  escapes  the  efficient  student, 
as  that  the  student  may  supply  the  actor's  lack  of 
insight. 

It  is,  indeed,  comparatively  easy  for  a  student 
of  literature  to  support  the  proposition  that  Shake- 
speare can  be,  and  ought  to  be,  represented  on  the 
stage.  But  it  is  difficult  to  define  the  ways  and 
means  of  securing  practical  observance  of  the  pre- 
cept. For  some  years  there  has  been  a  widening 
divergence  of  view  respecting  methods  of  Shake- 
spearean production.  Those  who  defend  in  theory 
the  adaptability  of  Shakespeare  to  the  stage  are 
at  variance  with  the  leading  managers,  who  alone 
possess  the  power  of  conferring  on  the  Shakespearean 
drama  theatrical  interpretation.  In  the  most  in- 
fluential circles  of  the  theatrical  profession  it  has 
become  a  commonplace  to  assert  that  Shakespearean 
drama  cannot  be  successfully  produced,  cannot  be 
rendered  tolerable  to  any  substantial  section  of 
the  playgoing  public,  without  a  plethora  of  scenic 
spectacle  and  gorgeous  costume,  much  of  which 
the  student  regards  as  superfluous  and  inappropri- 
ate. An  accepted  tradition  of  the  modern  stage 
ordains  that  every  revival  of  a  Shakespearean  play 
at  a  leading  theatre  shall  base  some  part  of  its  claim 
to  pubfic  favour  on  its  spectacular  magnificence. 


PERILS  OF  SPECTACLE  3 

The  dramatic  interest  of  Shakespearean  drama  is, 
in  fact,  deemed  by  the  manager  to  be  inadequate 
to  satisfy  the  necessary  commercial  purposes  of  the 
theatre.  The  average  purveyor  of  pubhc  entertain- 
ment reckons  Shakespeare's  plays  among  tasteless 
and  colourless  commodities,  which  only  become 
marketable  when  they  are  reinforced  by  the  inde- 
pendent arts  of  music  and  painting.  Shakespeare's 
words  must  be  spoken  to  musical  accompaniments 
specially  prepared  for  the  occasion.  Pictorial  tab- 
leaux, even  though  they  suggest  topics  without 
relevance  to  the  development  of  the  plot,  have  at 
times  to  be  interpolated  in  order  to  keep  the  atten- 
tion of  the  audience  sufficiently  ahve. 

One  deduction  to  be  drawn  from  this  position 
of  affairs  is  irrefutable.  Spectacular  embellishments 
are  so  costly  that,  according  to  the  system  now  in 
vogue,  the  performance  of  a  play  of  Shakespeare 
involves  heavy  financial  risks.  It  is  equally  plain 
that,  unless  the  views  of  theatrical  managers  under- 
go revolution,  these  risks  are  Hkely  to  become  greater 
rather  than  smaller.  The  natural  result  is  that  in 
London,  the  city  which  sets  the  example  to  most 
English-speaking  communities,  Shakespearean  re- 
vivals are  comparatively  rare;  they  take  place  at 
uncertain  intervals,  and  only  those  pla3^s  are  viewed 
with  favour  by  the  London  manager  which  lend 
themselves  in  his  opinion  to  more  or  less  ostentatious 
spectacle,  and  to  the  interpolation  of  music  and 
dancing. 

It  is  ungrateful  to  criticise  adversely  any  work 
the  production  of  which  entails  the  expenditure  of 
much  thought  and  money.  More  especially  is  it  dis- 
tasteful when  the  immediate  outcome  is,  as  in  the 


4      SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

case  of  many  Shakespearean  revivals  at  the  great 
West-end  theatres  of  London,  the  giving  of  pleasure 
to  large  sections  of  the  community.  That  is  in  itself 
a  worthy  object.  But  it  is  open  to  doubt  whether, 
from  the  sensible  hterary  point  of  view,  the  man- 
agerial activity  be  well  conceived  or  to  the  public 
advantage.  It  is  hard  to  ignore  a  fundamental 
flaw  in  the  manager's  central  position.  The  pleasure 
which  recent  Shakespearean  revivals  offer  the  spec- 
tator reaches  him  mainly  through  the  eye.  That 
is  the  manager's  avowed  intention.  Yet  no  one 
would  seriously  deny  that  the  Shakespearean  drama 
appeals,  both  primarily  and  ultimately,  to  the  head 
and  to  the  heart.  "Whoever  seeks,  therefore,  by 
the  production  of  Shakespearean  drama  chiefly  to 
please  the  spectator's  eye  shows  scant  respect  both 
for  the  dramatist  and  for  the  spectator,  however 
unwittingly  he  tends  to  misrepresent  the  one  and 
to  mislead  the  other  in  a  particular  of  first-rate 
importance.  Indeed,  excess  in  scenic  display  does 
worse  than  restrict  opportunities  of  witnessing 
Shakespeare's  plays  on  the  stage  in  London  and 
other  large  cities  of  England  and  America.  It  is 
to  be  feared  that  such  excess  either  weakens  or  dis- 
torts the  just  and  proper  influence  of  Shakespeare's 
work.  If  these  imputations  can  be  sustained,  then 
it  follows  that  the  increased  and  increasing  expense 
which  is  involved  in  the  production  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  ought  on  grounds  of  public  policy  to  be 
diminished. 

II 

Every  stage  representation  of  a  play  requires 
sufficient  scenery  and  costume  to  produce  in  the 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  SCENERY  5 

audience  that  illusion  of  environment  which  the 
text  invites.  Without  so  much  scenery  or  costume 
the  words  fail  to  get  home  to  the  audience.  In 
comedies  dealing  with  concrete  conditions  of  modem 
society,  the  stage  presentation  necessarily  relies  to 
a  ver}^  large  extent  for  its  success  on  the  realism  of 
the  scenic  appliances.  In  plays  which,  deaUng  with 
the  universal  and  less  familiar  conditions  of  life, 
appeal  to  the  highest  faculties  of  thought  and  imagi- 
nation, the  pursuit  of  realism  in  the  scenery  tends 
to  destroy  the  full  significance  of  the  illusion  which 
it  ought  to  enforce.  In  the  case  of  pla3's  straight- 
forwardl}^  treating  of  contemporary  affairs,  the  en- 
vironment w^hich  it  is  sought  to  reproduce  is  familiar 
and  eas}^  of  imitation.  In  the  case  of  drama,  which 
involves  larger  spheres  of  fancy  and  feehng,  the 
environment  is  unfamiliar  and  admits  of  no  realistic 
imitation.  The  wall-paper  and  furniture  of  Mrs. 
So-and-so's  drawing-room  in  Belgravia  or  Derbyshire 
can  be  transferred  bodity  to  the  stage.  Prosperous 
deserted  island  does  not  admit  of  the  hke  translation. 
Effective  suggestion  of  the  scene  of  The  Tempest 
is  all  that  can  be  reasonably  attempted  or  desired. 
Plays  w^iich  are  wrought  of  purest  imaginative  tex- 
ture call  solely  for  a  scenic  setting  which  should 
convey  effective  suggestion.  The  machinery  to  be 
employed  for  the  purpose  of  effective  suggestion 
should  be  simple  and  unobtrusive.  If  it  be  complex 
and  obtrusive,  it  defeats  '4he  purpose  of  playing" 
by  exaggerating  for  the  spectator  the  inevitable 
interval  between  the  visionary  and  indeterminate 
limits  of  the  scene  which  the  poet  imagines  and  the 
cramped  and  narrow  bounds  which  the  stage  renders 
practicable.     That  perilous  interval  can  only  be  ef- 


6       SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

fectualh'  bridged  by  scenic  art,  which  is  appUed 
with  an  apt  judgment  and  a  hght  hand.  Anything 
that  aims  at  doing  more  than  satisfy  the  condition 
essential  to  the  effective  suggestion  of  the  scenic 
environment  of  Shakespearean  drama  is,  from  the 
Hterary  and  logical  points  of  view,  '^wasteful  and 
ridiculous  excess."  ^ 

But  it  is  not  only  a  simplification  of  scenic  ap- 
pliances that  is  needed.  Other  external  incidents 
of  production  require  revision.  Spectacular  methods 
of  production  entail  the  emplo^Tnent  of  armies  of 
silent  supernumeraries  to  whom  are  allotted  func- 
tions wholly  ornamental  and  mostly  impertinent. 
I  Here,  too,  reduction  is  desirable  in  the  interest  of 
.  the  true  significance  of  drama.  No  valid  reason 
can  be  adduced  why  persons  should  appear  on  the 
•stage  who  are  not  precisely  indicated  by  the  text  of 
the  play  or  by  the  authentic  stage  directions.  When 
Csesar  is  buried,  it  is  essential  to  produce  in  the 
audience  the  illusion  that  a  crowd  of  Roman  citizens 
is  taking  part  in  the  ceremony.  But  quahty  comes 
here  before  quantity.  The  fewer  the  number  of 
supernumeraries  by  whom  the  needful  illusion  is 
effected,  the  greater  the  merit  of  the  performance, 
the  more  con\dncing  the  testimony  borne  to  the  skill 
of  the  stage-manager.  Again,  no  processions  of 
psalm-singing  priests  and  monks  contribute  to  the 
essential  illusion  in  the  historical  plays.  Nor  does 
the  text  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice  demand  any 

^  A  minor  practical  objection,  from  the  dramatic  point  of  view, 
to  realistic  scenery  is  the  long  pause  its  setting  on  the  stage  often 
renders  inevitable  between  the  scenes.  Intervals  of  the  kind, 
which  always  tend  to  blunt  the  dramatic  point  of  the  play, 
especially  in  the  case  of  tragic  masterpieces,  should  obviously  be 
as  brief  as  possible. 


EFFECTS  OF  SIMPLIFICATION  7 

assembly  of  Venetian  townsfolk,  however  pic- 
turesquely attired,  sporting  or  chaffering  with  one 
another  on  the  Rialto,  when  Sh3"lock  enters  to 
ponder  Antonio's  request  for  a  loan.  An  inter- 
polated tableau  is  indefensible,  and  'Hhough  it 
make  the  unskilful  laugh,  cannot  but  make  the 
judicious  grieve."  In  Antony  and  Cleopatra  the 
pageant  of  Cleopatra's  voyage  up  the  river  Cydnus 
to  meet  her  lover  Antony  should  have  no  existence 
outside  the  gorgeous  description  given  of  it  by 
Enobarbus. 

Ill 

What  would  be  the  practical  effects  of  a  stem 
resolve  on  the  part  of  theatrical  managers  to  sim- 
plify the  scenic  appliances  and  to  reduce  the  super- 
numerary staff  when  they  are  producing  Shake- 
spearean drama?  The  replies  will  be  in  various 
keys.  One  result  of  simplification  is  obvious.  There 
w^ould  be  so  much  more  money  in  the  manager's 
pocket  after  he  had  paid  the  expenses  of  produc- 
tion. If  his  outlay  were  smaller,  the  sum  that  he 
expended  in  the  production  of  one  play  of  Shake- 
speare on  the  current  over-elaborate  scale  would 
cover  the  production  of  two  or  three  pieces  mounted 
with  simplicity  and  with  a  strict  adherence  to  the 
requirements  of  the  text.  In  such  an  event,  the 
manager  would  be  satisfied  with  a  shorter  run  for 
each  play. 

On  the  other  hand,  supporters  of  the  existing 
system  allege  that  no  public,  which  is  worth  the 
counting,  would  interest  itself  in  Shakespeare's 
plays,  if  they  were  robbed  of  scenic  upholstery-  and 


8      SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

spectacular  display.  This  estimate  rests  on  in- 
secure foundations.  That  section  of  the  London 
public,  which  is  genuinely  interested  in  Shake- 
spearean drama  for  its  own  sake,  is  prone  to  distrust 
the  modem  theatrical  manager,  and  as  things  are, 
for  the  most  part  avoids  the  theatre  altogether. 
The  student  stays  at  home  to  read  Shakespeare  at 
his  fire-side. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  the  public  to  which 
Shakespeare  in  his  purity  makes  appeal  is  not  very 
large.  It  is  clearty  not  large  enough  to  command 
continuous  runs  of  plays  for  months,  or  even  weeks. 
But  therein  lies  no  cause  for  depression.  Long  runs 
of  a  single  play  of  Shakespeare  bring  more  evil  than 
good  in  their  train.  They  develop  in  even  the 
most  efficient  acting  a  soulless  mechanism.  The 
Hterary  beauty  of  the  text  is  obhterated  by  repeti- 
tion from  the  actors'  minds.  Unostentatious  mount- 
ing of  the  Shakespearean  plays,  however  efficient  be 
the  acting  with  which  it  is  associated,  may  always 
fail  to  ''please  the  million";  it  may  be  ''caviare  to 
the  general."  Nevertheless,  the  sagacious  mana- 
ger, who,  by  \drtue  of  comparatively  inexpensive 
settings  and  in  alliance  with  a  well-chosen  com- 
pany of  efficient  actors  and  actresses,  is  able  at 
short  intervals  to  produce  a  succession  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  may  reasonably  expect  to  attract  a 
small  but  steady  and  sufficient  support  from  the 
intelligent  section  of  London  playgoers,  and  from 
the  home-reading  students  of  Shakespeare,  who 
are  not  at  present  playgoers  at  aU. 


EXPERIENCE  OF  KEAN  AND  IRVING  9 

IV 

The  practical  manager,  who  naturally  seeks 
pecuniary  profit  from  his  ventures,  insists  that 
these  suggestions  are  counsels  of  perfection  and 
these  anticipations  wild  and  fantastic  dreams. 
His  last  word  is  that  by  spectacular  method  Shake- 
speare can  alone  be  made  to  '^pay"  in  the  theatre. 
But  are  we  here  on  perfectly  secure  ground?  Has 
the  commercial  success  attending  the  spectacular 
production  of  Shakespeare  been  invariably  so  con- 
spicuous as  to  put  sununarily  out  of  court,  on  the 
purely  commercial  ground,  the  method  of  simphcity? 
The  pecuniary  results  are  public  knowledge  in  the 
case  of  the  two  most  strenuous  and  prolonged 
endeavours  to  give  Shakespeare  the  splendours  of 
spectacle  which  have  yet  been  completed  on  the 
London  stage.  What  is  the  message  of  these  two 
efforts  in  mere  pecuniary  terms? 

Charles  Kean  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder 
of  the  modem  spectacular  system,  though  it  had 
some  precedents  and  has  been  developed  since  his 
day.  Charles  Kean,  between  1851  and  1859,  per- 
sistently endeavoured  by  prodigal  and  brilliant  dis- 
play to  make  the  production  of  Shakespeare  an 
enteiprise  of  profit  at  the  Princess's  Theatre,  Lon- 
don.    The  scheme  proved  pecuniarily  disastrous. 

Subsequently  Kean's  mantle  was  assumed  by 
the  late  Sir  Henry  Irving,  the  greatest  of  recent 
actors  and  stage-managers,  who  in  many  regards 
conferred  incalculable  benefits  on  the  theatre-going 
public  and  on  the  theatrical  profession.  Through- 
out the  last  quarter  of  the  last  century,  Irving  gave 
the  spectacular  and  scenic  system  in  the  produc- 
tion of  Shakespeare  every  advantage  that  it  could 


10     SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

derive  from  munificent  expenditure  and  the  co- 
operation of  highly  endowed  artists.  He  could 
justly  claim  a  finer  artistic  sentiment  and  a  higher 
histrionic  capacity  than  Charles  Kean  possessed. 
Yet  Irving  announced  not  long  before  his  death 
that  he  lost  on  his  Shakespearean  productions  a 
hundred  thousand  pounds.     Sir  Henry  added: 

The  enormous  cost  of  a  Shakespearean  produc- 
tion on  the  hberal  and  elaborate  scale  which  the 
public  is  now  accustomed  to  expect  makes  it  almost 
impossible  for  any  manager — I  don't  care  who  it  is 
— to  pursue  a  continuous  policy  of  Shakespeare  for 
many  years  with  any  hope  of  profit  in  the  long  run. 

In  face  of  this  authoritative  pronouncement,  it 
must  be  conceded  that  the  spectacular  system  has 
been  given,  within  recent  memory,  every  chance  of 
succeeding,  and,  as  far  as  recorded  testimony  is 
available,  has  been,  from  the  commercial  point  of 
view,  a  failure. 

Meanwhile,  during  and  since  the  period  when 
Sir  Henry  Irving  filled  the  supreme  place  among 
producers  of  Shakespeare  on  the  stage,  the  simple 
method  of  Shakespearean  production  has  been 
given  no  serious  chance.  The  anticipation  of  its 
pecuniary  failure  has  not  been  put  in  satisfactory 
conditions  to  any  practical  test.  The  last  time  that 
it  was  put  to  a  sound  practical  test  it  did  not  fail. 
While  Irving  was  a  boy,  Phelps  at  Sadler's  Wells 
Theatre  gave,  in  well-considered  conditions,  the 
simple  method  a  trial.  Phelps's  playhouse  was  situ- 
ated in  the  unfashionable  neighbourhood  of  Islington. 
But  the  prophets  of  evil,  who  were  no  greater  stran- 
gers to  Phelps's  generation  than  they  are  to  our 
own,  were  themselves  confuted  by  his  experience. 


PHELPS  AT  SADLER'S  WELLS  11 

V 

On  the  27th  of  May,  1844,  Phelps,  a  most  intel- 
ligent actor  and  a  serious  student  of  Shakespeare, 
opened  the  long-disused  Sadler's  Wells  Theatre 
in  partnership  wdth  Mrs.  Warner,  a  capable  actress, 
whose  rendering  of  Imogen  went  near  perfection. 
Their  design  was  inspired  by  ''the  hope,"  they  wrote 
in  an  unassuming  address,  ''of  eventually  render- 
ing Sadler's  Wells  what  a  theatre  ought  to  be,  a 
place  for  justly  representing  the  works  of  our  great 
dramatic  poets."  This  hope  they  went  far  to  real- 
ise.    The  first  play  that  they  produced  was  Macbeth. 

Phelps  continued  to  control  Sadler's  Wells  Thea- 
tre for  more  than  eighteen  years.  During  that 
period  he  produced,  together  with  many  other 
English  plays  of  classical  repute,  no  fewer  than 
thirty-one  of  the  thirty-seven  great  dramas  which 
came  from  Shakespeare's  pen.  In  his  first  season, 
besides  Macbeth  he  set  forth  Hamlet,  King  John, 
Henry  VIIL,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Othello,  and 
Richard  III.  To  these  he  added  in  the  course  of 
his  second  season  Julius  Ccesar,  King  Lear,  and  The 
Winter^s  Tale.  Henry  IV.,  part  I.,  Measure  for 
Measure,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  The  Tempest  fol- 
lowed in  his  third  season;  As  You  Like  It,  Cymbeline, 
The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  and  Twelfth  Night, 
in  his  fourth.  Each  succeeding  season  saw  further 
additions  to  the  Shakespearean  repertory,  until 
only  six  Shakespearean  dramas  were  left  unrepre- 
sented, viz. — Richard  11. ,  the  three  parts  of  Henry 
VL,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  Titus  Andronicus. 
Of  these,  one  alone,  Richard  II.,  is  really  actable. 

The  leading  principles,  to  which  Phelps  strictly 


12     SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

adhered  throughout  his  career  of  management,  call 
for  most  careful  consideration.  He  gathered  round 
him  a  company  of  actors  and  actresses,  whom  he 
zealously  trained  to  interpret  Shakespeare's  language. 
He  accustomed  his  colleagues  to  act  harmoniously 
together,  and  to  sacrifice  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
enterprise  pretensions  to  individual  prominence. 
No  long  continuous  run  of  any  one  piece  was  per- 
mitted by  the  rules  of  the  playhouse.  The  pro- 
gramme was  constantly  changed.  The  scenic  ap- 
pliances were  simple,  adequate,  and  inexpensive. 
The  supernumerary  staff  was  restricted  to  the 
smallest  practicable  number.  The  general  expenses 
were  consequently  kept  within  narrow  limits.  For 
every  thousand  pounds  that  Charles  Kean  laid  out 
at  the  Princess's  Theatre  on  scenery  and  other  ex- 
penses of  production,  Phelps  in  his  most  ornate  re- 
vivals spent  less  than  a  fourth  of  that  sum.  For 
the  pounds  spent  by  managers  on  more  recent 
revivals,  Phelps  would  have  spent  only  as  many 
shillings.  In  the  result,  Phelps  reaped  from  the 
profits  of  his  efforts  a  handsome  unencumbered  in- 
come. During  the  same  period  Charles  Kean  grew 
more  and  more  deeply  involved  in  oppressive  debt, 
and  at  a  later  date  Sir  Henry  Irving  made  over  to 
the  public  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  above  his 
receipts. 

VI 

Why,  then,  should  not  Phelps's  encouraging 
experiment  be  made  again  ?  ^ 

^  It  is  just  to  notice,  among  endeavours  of  the  late  years  of  the 
past  century,  to  which  I  confine  my  remarks  here,  the  efforts  to 
produce    Shakespearean   drama   worthily    which   were   made   by 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  ACTOR         13 

Before  anj^one  may  commit  himself  to  an  affirm- 
ative reply,  it  is  needful  for  him  to  realise  fully  the 
precise  demands  which  a  system  hke  that  of  Phelps 
makes,  when  rightly  interpreted,  on  the  character, 
ability,  and  energy  of  the  actors  and  actresses.     If 
scenery  in  Shakespearean  productions  be  relegated ' 
to  its  proper  place  in  the  background  of  the  stage,  ( 
it  is  necessary  that  the  acting,  from  top  to  bottom  , 
of  the  cast,  shall  be  more  efficient  and  better  har- 
monised than  that  which  is  commonly  associated  ' 
with  spectacular  representations.     The  simple  meth- 
od of  producing  Shakespeare  focusses  the  interest  , 
of  the  audience  on  the  actor  and  actress;  it  gives 
them  a  dignity  and  importance  which  are  unknown  , 
to  the  complex  method.     Under  the  latter  system, 
the  attention  of  the  spectator  is  largely  absorbed  by 
the  triumphs  of  the  scene-painter  and  machinist, 
of   the   costumier   and   the   musicians.     The   actor 
and  actress  often  elude  notice  altogether. 

Charles  Alexander  Calvert  at  the  Prince's  Theatre,  Mancliester, 
between  1864  and  1874.  Calvert,  who  was  a  warm  admirer  of 
Phelps,  attempted  to  blend  Phelps's  method  -^vith  Charles  Kean's, 
and  bestowed  great  scenic  elaboration  on  the  production  of  at  least 
eight  plays  of  Shakespeare.  Financially  the  speculation  saw 
every  vicissitude,  and  Calvert's  experience  may  be  quoted  in  sup- 
port of  the  view  that  a  return  to  Phelps's  method  is  financially 
safer  than  a  return  to  Charles  Kean's,  More  recently  the  Eliza- 
bethan Stage  Society  endeavoured  to  produce,  with  a  simplicity 
which  erred  on  the  side  of  severity,  many  plays  of  Shakespeare 
and  other  literary  dramas.  No  scenery  was  employed,  and  the 
performers  were  dressed  in  Elizabethan  costume.  The  Society's 
work  was  done  privately,  and  did  not  invite  any  genuine  test  of 
publicity.  The  representation  by  the  Society  on  November  11, 
1899,  in  the  Lecture  Theatre  at  Burlington  House,  of  Richard  II., 
in  which  Mr  Granville  Barker  played  the  King  with  great  charm 
and  judgment,  showed  the  fascination  that  a  competent  rendering 
of  Shakespeare's  text  exerts,  even  in  the  total  absence  of  scenery, 
over  a  large  audience  of  suitable  temper. 


14    SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

Macready,  whose  theatrical  career  was  anterior 
to  the  modern  spectacular  period  of  Shakespearean 
representation,  has  left  on  record  a  deliberate  opinion 
of  Charles  Kean's  elaborate  methods  at  the  Princess's 
Theatre  in  their  relation  to  drama  and  the  histrionic 
art.  Macready's  verdict  has  an  universal  applica- 
tion. ''The  production  of  the  Shakespearean  plays 
at  the  Princess's  Theatre,"  the  great  actor  wrote  to 
Lady  Pollock  on  the  1st  of  May,  1859,  rendered  the 
spoken  text  ''more  like  a  running  commentary  on 
the  spectacles  exhibited  than  the  scenic  arrange- 
ments an  illustration  of  the  text."  No  criticism 
could  define  more  convincingly  the  humiliation  to 
which  the  author's  words  are  exposed  by  spectacle, 
or,  what  is  more  pertinent  to  the  immediate  argu- 
ment, the  evil  which  is  worked  by  spectacle  on  the 
actor. 

Acting  can  be,  and  commonly  tends  to  be,  the 
most  mechanical  of  physical  exercises.  The  actor 
is  often  a  mere  automaton  who  repeats  night  after 
night  the  same  unimpressive  trick  of  voice,  eye, 
and  gesture.  His  defects  of  understanding  may  be 
comparatively  unobtrusive  in  a  spectacular  display, 
where  he  is  liable  to  escape  censure  by  escaping 
observation,  or  at  best  to  be  regarded  as  a  show- 
man. Furthermore,  the  long  runs  which  scenic  ex- 
cess brings  in  its  train  accentuate  the  mechanical 
actor's  imperfections  and  diminish  his  opportunities 
of  remedying  them.  On  the  other  hand,  acting  can 
rise  in  opposite  conditions  into  the  noblest  of  the 
arts.  The  great  actor  relies  for  genuine  success  on 
no  mere  gesticulatory  mechanism.  Imaginative  in- 
sight, passion,  the  gift  of  orator\^,  grace  and  dignity 
of  movement  and  bearing,  perfect  command  of  the 


THE  ACTOR'S  OPPORTUNITIES  15 

voice  in  the  whole  gamut  of  its  inflections  are  the 
constituent  quahties  of  true  histrionic  capacity. 

In  no  drama  are  these  quahties  more  necessary, 
or  are  ampler  opportunities  offered  for  their  use, 
than  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.     Not  only  in  the 
leading  roles  of  his  masterpieces,  but  in  the  sub- 
ordinate parts  throughout  the  range  of  his  work,  the 
highest  abilities  of  the  actor  or  actress  can  find  some 
scope  for  employment.      It  is  therefore  indispen- 
sable   that   the    standard  of    Shakespearean  acting 
should  always  be  maintained  at  the  highest  level, 
if  Shakespearean  drama  is  to  be  fitly  rendered  in 
the   theatre.     The   worst   of   the   evils,    which   are 
inherent  in  scenic  excess,  with  its  accompaniment 
of  long  runs,  is  its  tendency  to  sanction  the  main- 
tenance of  the  level  of  acting  at  something  below 
the  highest.     Phelps  was  keenly  alive  to  this  peril, 
and  his  best  energies  were  devoted  to  training  his 
actors  and  actresses  for  all  the  roles  in  the  cast, 
great  and  small.     Actors  and  actresses  of  the  first 
rank   on   occasion   filled   minor  parts,   in   order  to 
heighten  the  efficiency  of  the  presentation.     Actors 
and  actresses  who  have  the  dignity  of  their  pro- 
fession at  heart  might  be  expected  to  welcome  the 
revival  of  a  system  which  alone  guarantees  their 
talent  and  the  work  of  the  dramatist  due  recogni- 
tion,  even  if  it   leave  histrionic   incompetence  no 
hope  of  escape  from  the  scorn  that  befits  it.     It  is 
on  the  aspiration  and  sentiment  of  the  acting  pro- 
fession that  must  largely  depend  the  final  answer 
to  the  question  whether  Phelps's  experiment  can 
be  made  again  with  Hkelihood  of  success. 


16     SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

VII 

Foreign  experience  tells  in  favour  of  the 
contention  that,  if  Shakespeare's  plays  are  to  be 
honoured  on  the  modern  stage  as  they  deserve, 
they  must  be  freed  of  the  existing  incubus  of  scenic 
machinery.  French  acting  has  always  won  and 
deserved  admiration.  There  is  no  doubt  that  one 
cause  of  its  permanently  high  repute  is  the  absolute 
divorce  in  the  French  theatre  of  drama  from  spectacle. 

Moliere  stands  to  French  literature  in  much  the 
same  relation  as  Shakespeare  stands  to  English 
literature.  Mohere's  plays  are  constantly  acted  in 
French  theatres  with  a  scenic  austerity  which  is 
unknown  to  the  humblest  of  our  theatres.  A  French 
audience  would  regard  it  as  sacrilege  to  convert 
a  comedy  of  Moliere  into  a  spectacle.  The  French 
people  are  commonly  credited  with  a  love  of  orna- 
ment and  display  to  which  the  English  people 
are  assumed  to  be  strangers,  but  their  treatment 
of  Moliere  is  convincing  proof  that  their  artistic 
sense  is  ultimately  truer  than  our  own. 

The  mode  of  producing  Shakespeare  on  the  stage 
in  Germany  supplies  an  argument  to  the  same  effect. 
In  Berlin  and  Vienna,  and  in  all  the  chief  towns  of 
German-speaking  Europe,  Shakespeare's  plays  are 
produced  constantly  and  in  all  their  variety,  for  the 
most  part,  in  conditions  which  are  directly  anti- 
thetical to  those  prevailing  in  the  West-end  theatres 
of  London.  Twenty-eight  of  Shakespeare's  thirty- 
seven  plays  figure  in  the  repertoires  of  the  leading 
companies  of  German-speaking  actors. 

The  currently  accepted  method  of  presentation 
can  be  judged  from  the  following  personal  experience. 


SHAKESPEARE  IN  VIENNA  17 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  in  the  Burg-Theater  in  Vienna 
on  a  Sunday  night — the  night  on  which  the  great 
working  population  of  Vienna  chiefly  take  their 
recreation,  as  in  this  country  it  is  chiefly  taken  by 
the  great  working  population  on  Saturday  night. 
The  Burg-Theater  in  Vienna  is  one  of  the  largest 
theatres  in  the  world.  It  is  of  similar  dimensions  to 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  or  Covent  Garden  Opera- 
house.  On  the  occasion  of  my  visit  the  play  pro- 
duced was  Shakespeare's  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
The  house  was  crowded  in  every  part.  The  scenic 
arrangements  were  simple  and  unobtrusive,  but 
were  well  calculated  to  suggest  the  Oriental  atmos- 
phere of  the  plot.  There  was  no  music  before  the 
performance,  or  during  the  intervals  between  the 
acts,  or  as  an  accompaniment  to  great  speeches  in 
the  progress  of  the  play.  There  was  no  making 
love,  nor  any  dpng  to  slow  music,  although  the 
stage  directions  were  followed  scrupulously ;  the 
song  '^Come,  thou  Monarch  of  the  Vine,"  was  sung 
to  music  in  the  drinking  scene  on  board  Pompey's 
galley,  and  there  were  the  appointed  flourishes  of 
trumpets  and  drums.  The  acting  was  competent, 
though  not  of  the  highest  calibre,  but  a  satisfactory 
level  was  evenly  maintained  throughout  the  cast. 
There  were  no  conspicuous  deflections  from  the 
adequate  standard.  The  character  of  whom  I  have 
the  most  distinct  recollection  was  Enobarbus,  the 
level-headed  and  straight-hitting  critic  of  the  action 
— a  comparatively  subordinate  part,  which  was 
filled  by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  actors  of  the 
Viennese  stage.  He  fitted  his  part  with  telling 
accuracy. 

The  whole  piece  was  listened  to  with  breathless 


18    SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

interest.  It  was  acted  practically  without  curtail- 
ment, and,  although  the  performance  lasted  nearly 
five  hours,  no  sign  of  impatience  manifested  itself 
at  any  point.  This  was  no  exceptional  experience 
at  the  Burg-Theater.  Plays  of  Shakespeare  are 
acted  there  repeatedly — on  an  average  twice  a 
week — and,  I  am  credibly  informed,  with  identical 
results  to  those  of  which  I  was  an  eye-witness. 


VIII 

It  cannot  be  flattering  to  our  self-esteem  that  the 
Austrian  people  should  show  a  greater  and  a  wiser 
appreciation  of  the  theatrical  capacities  of  Shake- 
speare's masterpieces  than  we  who  are  Shakespeare's 
countrymen  and  the  most  direct  and  rightful  heirs  of 
his  glorious  achievements.  How  is  the  disturbing 
fact  to  be  accounted  for?  Is  it  possible  that  it  is 
attributable  to  some  decay  in  us  of  the  imagina- 
tion— to  a  growing  slowness  on  our  part  to  ap- 
preciate works  of  imagination?  When  one  reflects 
on  the  simple  mechanical  contrivances  which  satis- 
fied the  theatrical  audiences,  not  only  of  Shake- 
speare's own  day,  but  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
during  which  Shakespeare  was  repeatedly  per- 
formed; when  one  compares  the  simplicity  of  scenic 
mechanism  in  the  past  with  its  complexity  in  our 
own  time,  one  can  hardly  resist  the  conclusion  that 
the  imagination  of  the  theatre-going  public  is  no 
longer  what  it  was  of  old.  The  play  alone  was 
then  'Hhe  thing."  Now  'Hhe  thing,"  it  seems,  is 
something  outside  the  play — namely,  the  painted 
Bcene  or  the  costume,  the  music  or  the  dance. 


ALLEGED  DESIRE  FOR  SPECTACLE  19 

Garrick  played  Macbeth  in  an  ordinary  Court 
suit  of  his  own  era.  The  habihments  proper  to 
Cehic  monarchs  of  the  eleventh  century  were  left 
to  be  supplied  by  the  imagination  of  the  spectators 
or  not  at  all.  No  realistic  ^'effects"  helped  the  play 
forward  in  Garrick's  time,  yet  the  attention  of  his 
audience,  the  critics  tell  us,  was  never  known  to 
stray  when  he  produced  a  great  play  by  Shake- 
speare. In  Shakespeare's  day  boys  or  men  took 
the  part  of  women,  and  how  characters  like  Lady 
Macbeth  and  Desdemona  were  adequately  rendered 
by  youths  beggars  belief.  But  renderings  in  such 
conditions  proved  popular  and  satisfactory.  Such 
a  fact  seems  convincing  testimony,  not  to  the  abihty 
of  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  bo3^s — the  nature  of 
boys  is  a  pretty  permanent  factor  in  human  society 
— but  to  the  superior  imaginative  faculty  of  adult 
Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  playgoers,  in  whom,  as  in 
Garrick's  time,  the  needful  dramatic  illusion  was 
far  more  easily  evoked  than  it  is  nowadays. 

This  is  no  exhilarating  conclusion.  But  less 
exhilarating  is  the  endeavour  that  is  sometimes 
made  by  advocates  of  the  system  of  spectacle  to 
prove  that  Shakespeare  himself  would  have  appre- 
ciated the  modern  developments  of  the  scenic  art — 
nay,  more,  that  he  himself  has  justified  them. 
This  line  of  argument  serv^es  to  confirm  the  sug- 
gested defect  of  imagination  in  the  present  genera- 
tion. The  well-known  chorus  before  the  first  act 
of  Henry  V.  is  the  evidence  which  is  relied  upon  to 
show  that  Shakespeare  washed  his  plays  to  be,  in 
journalistic  dialect,  ''magnificently  staged,"  and 
that  he  deplored  the  inability  of  his  uncouth  age  to 
realise   that  wish.     The  lines  are  famihar;  but  it 


20    SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

is  necessary  to  quote  them  at  length,  in  fairness  to 
those  who  judge  them  to  be  a  defence  of  the  spec- 
tacular principle  in  the  presentation  of  Shake- 
spearean drama.     They  run: — 

O  for  a  muse  of  fire,  that  would  ascend 

The  brightest  heaven  of  invention, 

A  kingdom  for  a  stage,  princes  to  act. 

And  monarchs  to  behold  the  swelling  scene ! 

Then  should  the  warlike  Harry,  like  himself. 

Assume  the  port  of  Mars ;  and  at  his  heels, 

Leash'd  in  like  hounds,  should  famine,  sword  and  fire 

Crouch  for  employment.     But  pardon,  gentles  all. 

The  flat  unraised  spirits  that  have  dar'd 

On  this  unworthy  scaffold  to  bring  forth 

So  great  an  object:  can  this  cockpit  hold 

The  vasty  fields  of  France  ?  or  may  we  cram 

Within  this  wooden  O  the  very  casques 

That  did  affright  the  air  at  Agincourt? 

O,  pardon !  since  a  crooked  figure  may 

Attest  in  little  place  a  million; 

And  let  us,  ciphers  to  this  great  accompt. 

On  your  imaginary  forces  work. 

Suppose  within  the  girdle  of  these  walls 

Are  now  confined  two  mighty  monarchies. 

Whose  high  upreared  and  abutting  fronts. 

The  perilous  narrow  ocean  parts  asunder; 

Piece  out  our  imperfections  with  your  thoughts; 

Into  a  thousand  parts  divide  one  man. 

And  make  imaginary  puissance: 

Think,  when  we  talk  of  horses,  that  you  see  them 

Printing  their  proud  hoofs  i'  the  receiving  earth. 

For  'tis  your  thoughts  that  now  must  deck  our  kings. 

Carry  them  here  and  there,  jumping  o'er  times. 

Turning  the  accomplishment  of  many  years 

Into  an  hour  glass. 

There  is,  in  my  opinion,  no  strict  relevance  in 
these  lines  to  the  enquiry  whether  Shakespeare's 
work  should  be  treated  on  the  stage  as  drama  or 
spectacle.     Nay,  I  go  further,  and  assert  that,  as 


ESSENTIAL  LIMITATIONS  OF  SCENERY       21 

far  as  the  speech  touches  the  question  at  issue  at 
all,  it  tells  against  the  pretensions  of  spectacle. 

Shortly  stated,  Shakespeare's  splendid  prelude 
to  his  play  of  Henry  V.  is  a  spirited  appeal  to  his 
audience  not  to  waste  regrets  on  defects  of  stage 
machinery,  but  to  bring  to  the  observation  of  his 
piece  their  highest  powers  of  imagination,  whereby 
alone  can  full  justice  be  done  to  a  majestic  theme. 
The  central  topic  of  the  choric  speech  is  the  essen- 
tial limitations  of  all  scenic  appliances.  The  dram- 
atist reminds  us  that  the  literal  presentation  of  life 
itself,  in  all  its  movement  and  action,  lies  outside 
the  range  of  the  stage,  especially  the  movement 
and  action  of  life  in  its  most  glorious  manifestations. 
Obvious  conditions  of  space  do  not  allow  'Hwo 
mighty  monarchies"  literally  to  be  confined  within 
the  walls  of  a  theatre.  Obvious  conditions  of  time 
cannot  turn  ''the  accomplishments  of  many  years 
into  an  hour  glass."  Shakespeare  is  airing  no 
private  grievance.  He  is  not  complaining  that  his 
plays  were  in  his  own  day  inadequately  upholstered 
in  the  theatre,  or  that  the  ''scaffold"  on  which  they 
were  produced  was  "unworthy"  of  them.  The 
words  have  no  concern  with  the  contention  that 
modern  upholstery  and  spectacular  machinery  render 
Shakespeare's  play  a  justice  which  was  denied  them 
in  his  lifetime.  As  reasonably  one  might  affirm 
that  the  modern  theatre  has  now  conquered  the 
ordinary  conditions  of  time  and  space;  that  a  mod- 
ern playhouse  can,  if  the  manager  so  will  it,  actually 
hold  within  its  walls  the  "vasty  fields  of  France," 
or  confine  "two  mighty  monarchies." 

A  wider  and  quite  impersonal  trend  of  thought 
is  offered  for  consideration  by  Shakespeare's  majestic 


22     SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

eloquence.  The  dramatist  bids  us  bear  in  mind 
that  his  Hues  do  no  more  than  suggest  the  things  he 
would  have  the  audience  see  and  understand;  the 
actors  aid  the  suggestion  according  to  their  ability. 
But  the  crucial  point  of  the  utterance  is  the  warning 
that  the  illusion  of  the  drama  can  only  be  rendered 
complete  in  the  theatre  by  the  working  of  the 
'' imaginary  forces"  of  the  spectators.  It  is  need- 
ful for  them  to  ''make  imaginary  puissance/'  if  the 
play  is  to  triumph.  It  is  their  ''thoughts"  that 
"must  deck"  the  kings  of  the  stage,  if  the  dram- 
atist's meaning  is  to  get  home.  The  poet  modestly 
underestimated  the  supreme  force  of  his  own  im- 
aginative genius  when  giving  these  admonitions  to 
his  hearers.  But  they  are  warnings  of  universal 
application,  and  can  never  be  safely  ignored. 

Such  an  exordium  as  the  chorus  before  Henry  V. 
would  indeed  be  pertinent  to  every  stage  perform- 
ance of  great  drama  in  any  age  or  country.  It 
matters  not  whether  the  spectacular  machinery  be 
of  royal  magnificence  or  of  poverty-stricken  squalor. 
Let  us  make  the  extravagant  assumption  that  all 
the  artistic  genius  in  the  world  and  all  the  treasure 
in  the  Bank  of  England  were  placed  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  theatrical  manager  in  order  to  enable 
him  to  produce  a  great  play  on  his  stage  su- 
premely well  from  his  own  scenic  point  of  view. 
Even  then  it  would  not  be  either  superfluous  or 
impertinent  for  the  manager  to  adjure  the  audi- 
ence to  piece  out  the  "imperfections"  of  the 
scenery  with  their  "thoughts"  or  imagination. 
The  spectator's  "imaginary  puissance"  is,  practi- 
cally in  every  circumstance,  the  key-stone  of  the 
dramatic  illusion. 


SHAKESPEARE  ON  SCENIC  REALISM  23 

The  only  conditions  in  which  Shakespeare's  ad- 
juration would  be  superfluous  or  impertinent  would 
accompany  the  presentment  in  the  theatre  of  some 
circumscribed  incident  of  life  which  is  capable  of 
so  literal  a  rendering  as  to  leave  no  room  for  any 
make-believe  or  illusion  at  all.  The  unintellectual 
playgoer,  to  whom  Shakespeare  will  never  really 
prove  attractive  in  any  guise,  has  little  or  no  im- 
agination to  exercise,  and  he  only  tolerates  a  per- 
formance in  the  theatre  when  little  or  no  demand 
is  made  on  the  exercise  of  the  imaginative  faculty. 
''The  groundlings,"  said  Shakespeare  for  all  time, 
''are  capable  of  [appreciating]  nothing  but  inex- 
plicable dumb  shows  and  noise."  They  would  be 
hugely  delighted  nowadays  with  a  scene  in  which 
two  real  motor  cars,  with  genuine  chauffeurs  and 
passengers,  raced  uproariously  across  the  stage. 
That  is  realism  in  its  nakedness.  That  is  realism 
reduced  to  its  first  principles.  Realistic  "effects," 
however  speciously  beautiful  they  may  be,  invari- 
ably tend  to  realism  of  that  primal  type,  which 
satisfies  the  predilections  of  the  groundling,  and 
reduces  drama  to  the  level  of  the  cinematograph. 

IX 

The  deliberate  pursuit  of  scenic  realism  is  antag- 
onistic to  the  ultimate  law  of  dramatic  art.  In  the 
case  of  great  plays,  the  dramatic  representation  is 
most  successful  from  the  genuinely  artistic  point 
of  view — which  is  the  only  point  of  view  worthy 
of  discussion — when  the  just  dramatic  illusion  is 
produced  by  simple  and  unpretending  scenic  ap- 
pliances, in  which  the  inevitable   "imperfections" 


24    SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  MODERN  STAGE 

are  frankly  left  to  be  supplied  by  the  'thoughts" 
or  imagination  of  the  spectators. 

Lovers  of  Shakespeare  should  lose  no  opportunity 
of  urging  the  cause  of  simplicity  in  the  production 
of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  Practical  common- 
sense,  practical  considerations  of  a  pecuniary  kind, 
teach  us  that  it  is  only  by  the  adoption  of  simple 
methods  of  production  that  we  can  hope  to  have 
Shakespeare  represented  in  our  theatres  constantly 
and  in  all  his  variety.  Until  Shakespeare  is  repre- 
sented thus,  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  enlighten- 
ment, which  his  achievement  offers  English-speak- 
ing people  will  remain  wholly  inaccessible  to  the 
majority  who  do  not  read  him,  and  will  be  only  in 
part  at  the  command  of  the  few  who  do.  Nay, 
more:  until  Shakespeare  is  represented  on  the  stage 
constantly  and  in  his  variety,  English-speaking  men 
and  women  are  liable  to  the  imputation,  not  merely 
of  failing  in  the  homage  due  to  the  greatest  of  their 
countrymen,  but  of  falling  short  of  their  neigh- 
bours in  Germany  and  Austria  in  the  capacity  of 
appreciating  supremely  great  imaginative  Hterature. 


II 


SHAKESPEARE    AND    THE     ELIZABETHAN 
PLAYGOER  1 


In  a  freak  of  fancy,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  sent  to 
a  congenial  spirit  the  imaginary  intelligence  that  a 
well-known  firm  of  London  publishers  had,  after 
their  wont,  ''decHned  with  thanks"  six  undis- 
covered tragedies,  one  romantic  comedy,  a  fragment 
of  a  journal  extending  over  six  years,  and  an  un- 
finished autobiography  reaching  up  to  the  first 
performance  of  King  John  by  ''that  venerable 
but  still  respected  writer,  William  Shakespeare." 
Stevenson  was  writing  in  a  frivolous  mood;  but 
such  words  stir  the  imagination.  The  ordinary 
person,  if  he  had  to  choose  among  the  enumerated 
items  of  Shakespeare's  newly-discovered  manu- 
scripts, would  cheerfully  go  without  the  six  new 
tragedies  and  the  one  romantic  comedy,  if  he  had 
at  his  disposal,  by  way  of  consolation,  the  journal 
extending   over  six  years   and   the   autobiography 

^  This  paper,  which  was  first  printed  in  "  An  English  Mis- 
cellany, presented  to  Dr  Furnivall  in  honour  of  his  seventy-fifth 
birthday"  (Oxford:  At  the  Clarendon  Press,  I9OI),  was  written 
as  a  lecture  for  delivery  on  Tuesday  afternoon,  March  20,  1900, 
at  Queen's  College  (for  women)  in  Harley  Street,  London,  in  aid 
of  the  Fund  for  securing  a  picture  commemorating  Queen  Vic- 
toria's visit  to  the  College  in  1898. 

25 


26  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

reaching  up  to  the  first  performance  of  King  John. 
We  should  deem  ourselves  fortunate  if  we  had  the 
journal  alone.  It  would  hardly  matter  which  six 
years  of  Shakespeare's  life  the  journal  covered. 
As  a  boy,  as  a  young  actor,  as  an  industrious  re- 
viser of  other  men's  plays,  as  the  humorous  creator 
of  FalstafT,  Benedick,  and  Mercutio,  as  the  profound 
''natural  philosopher"  of  the  great  tragedies,  he 
could  never  have  been  quite  an  ordinary  diarist. 
Great  men  have  been  known  to  keep  diaries  in 
which  the  level  of  interest  does  not  rise  above  a 
visit  to  the  barber  or  the  dentist.  The  common 
routine  of  life  interested  Shakespeare,  but  some- 
thing beyond  it  must  have  found  place  in  his  journal. 
Reference  to  his  glorious  achievement  must  have 
gained  entry  there. 

Some  notice,  we  may  be  sure,  figured  in  Shake- 
speare's diary  of  the  first  performances  of  his  great 
plays  on  the  stage.  However  eminent  a  man  is 
through  native  genius  or  from  place  of  power,  he 
can  never  be  indifferent,  whatever  his  casual  pro- 
fessions to  the  contrary,  to  the  reception  accorded 
by  his  fellowmen  to  the  work  of  his  hand  and  head. 
I  picture  Shakespeare  as  the  soul  of  modesty  and 
gentleness  in  the  social  relations  of  life,  avoiding  un- 
becoming self-advertisement,  and  rating  at  its  just 
value  empty  flattery,  the  mere  adulation  of  the  lips. 
Gushing  laudation  is  as  little  to  the  taste  of  wise 
men  as  treacle.  They  cannot  escape  condiments 
of  the  kind,  but  the  smaller  and  less  frequent 
the  doses  the  more  they  are  content.  Shake- 
speare no  doubt  had  the  great  man's  self-con- 
fidence which  renders  him  to  a  large  extent  inde- 
pendent of  the  opinion  of  his  fellows.     At  the  same 


THE  GHOST  IN  HAMLET  27 

time,  the  knowledge  that  he  had  succeeded  in 
stirring  the  reader  or  hearer  of  his  plays,  the  knowl- 
edge that  his  words  had  gripped  their  hearts  and 
intellects,  cannot  have  been  ungrateful  to  him.  To 
desire  recognition  for  his  work  is  for  the  artist  an 
inevitable  and  a  laudable  ambition.  A  working 
dramatist  by  the  circumstance  of  his  calling  ap- 
peals as  soon  as  the  play  is  written  to  the  play- 
goer for  a  sympathetic  appreciation.  Nature  im- 
pelled Shakespeare  to  note  on  the  pages  of  his 
journal  his  impression  of  the  sentiment  with  which 
the  fruits  of  his  pen  were  welcomed  in  the  play- 
house. 

But  Shakespeare's  journal  does  not  exist,  and 
we  can  only  speculate  as  to  its  contents. 


II 

We  would  give  much  to  know  how  Shakespeare 
recorded  in  his  diary  the  first  performance  of 
Hamlet,  the  most  fascinating  of  all  his  works.  He 
himself,  we  are  credibly  told,  played  the  Ghost. 
We  would  give  much  for  a  record  of  the  feelings 
which  lay  on  the  first  production  of  the  play  beneath 
the  breast  of  the  silent  apparition  in  the  first  scene 
which  twice  crossed  the  stage  and  affrighted  Mar- 
cellus,  Horatio,  and  the  guards  on  the  platform 
before  the  castle  of  Elsinore.  No  piece  of  litera- 
ture that  ever  came  from  human  pen  or  brain  is 
more  closely  packed  with  fruit  of  the  imaginative 
study  of  human  life  than  is  Shakespeare's  tragedy 
of  Hamlet;  and  while  the  author  acted  the  part  of 
the   Ghost   in   the   play's   initial   representation   in 


28  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

the  theatre,  he  was  watching  the  revelation  of  his 
pregnant  message  for  the  first  time  to  the  external 
world.  \ATien  the  author  in  his  weird  role  of  Ham- 
let's murdered  father  opened  his  lips  for  the  first 
time,  we  might  almost  imagine  that  in  the  words 
''pity  me  not,  but  lend  thy  serious  hearing  to  what 
I  shall  unfold,"  he  was  reflecting  the  author's  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  proceedings  of  that  memorable 
afternoon.^  We  can  imagine  Shakespeare,  as  he 
saw  the  audience  responding  to  his  grave  appeal, 
giving  with  a  growing  confidence,  the  subsequent 
words  which  he  repeated  while  he  moved  to  the 
centre  of  the  platform-stage,  and  turned  to  face  the 
whole  house: — 

I  find  thee  apt; 
And  duller  shouldst  thou  be  than  the  fat  weed 
That  rots  itself  in  ease  on  Lethe  wharf, 
Wouldst  thou  not  stir  in  this. 

As  the  Ghost  vanished  and  the  air  rang  mysteri- 
ously with  his  piercing  words  "Remember  me," 
we  would  like  to  imagine  the  whole  intelligence  of 
Elizabethan  England  responding  to  that  cry  as  it 
sprang  on  its  first  utterance  in  the  theatre  from  the 
great  dramatist's  own  lips.  Since  that  memorable 
day,  at  any  rate,  the  whole  intelligence  of  the 
world  has  responded  to  that  cry  with  all  Hamlet's 
ecstasy,  and  with  but  a  single  modification  of  the 
phraseology : — 

Remember  thee ! 
Ay,  thou  great  soul,  while  memory  holds  a  seat 
In  this  distracted  globe. 

^  Performances  of  plays  in  Shakespeare's  time  always  took 
place  in  the  afternoon. 


CONTEMPORARY  POPULARITY  29 

III 

There  is  a  certain  justification,  in  fact,  for  the 
fancy  that  the  plaudites  were  loud  and  long,  when 
Shakespeare  created  the  role  of  the  ''poor  ghost" 
in  the  first  production  of  his  play  of  Hamlet  in 
1602.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  Shakespeare 
conspicuously  caught  the  ear  of  the  Elizabethan 
playgoer  at  a  very  early  date  in  his  career,  and  that 
he  held  it  firmly  for  life.  ''These  plays,"  wrote 
two  of  his  professional  associates  of  the  reception 
of  the  whole  series  in  the  playhouse  in  his  lifetime 
— "These  plays  have  had  their  trial  already,  and 
stood  out  all  appeals."  Matthew  Arnold,  appar- 
ently quite  unconsciously,  echoed  the  precise  phrase 
when  seeking  to  express  poetically,  the  universality 
of  Shakespeare's  reputation  in  our  own  day. 

Others  abide  our  judgment,  thou  art  free, 

is  the  first  line  of  Arnold's  well-known  sonnet, 
which  attests  the  rank  allotted  to  Shakespeare  in 
the  literary  hierarchy  by  the  professional  critic, 
nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries  after  the  dramatist's 
death.  There  was  no  narrower  qualification  in  the 
apostrophe  of  Shakespeare  by  Ben  Jonson,  a  very 
critical  contemporary,  as: — 

Soul  of  the  age, 
The  applause,  delight,  and  wonder  of  our  stage. 

This  play  of  Hamlet,  this  play  of  his  "which 
most  kindled  English  hearts,"  received  a  specially 
enthusiastic  welcome  from  Elizabethan  playgoers. 
It  was  acted  within  its  first  year  of  production  re- 
peatedly ("divers  times"),  not  merely  in  London 
"and  elsewhere,"  but  also — an  unusual  distinction 


30  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

— at  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  It 
was  reprinted  four  times  within  eight  years  of  its 
birth. 

Thus  the  charge  sometimes  brought  against  the 
Elizabethan  playgoer  of  failing  to  recognise  Shake- 
speare's sovereign  genius  should  be  reckoned  among 
popular  errors.  It  was  not  merely  the  recognition 
of  the  critical  and  highly  educated  that  Shake- 
speare received  in  person.  It  was  by  the  voice  of 
the  half-educated  populace,  whose  heart  and  in- 
tellect were  for  once  in  the  right,  that  he  was  ac- 
claimed the  greatest  interpreter  of  human  nature 
that  literature  had  known,  and,  as  subsequent  ex- 
perience has  proved,  was  likely  to  know.  There  is 
evidence  that  throughout  his  lifetime  and  for  a 
generation  afterwards  his  plays  drew  crowds  to  pit, 
boxes,  and  gallery  alike.  It  is  true  that  he  was 
one  of  a  number  of  popular  dramatists,  many  of 
whom  had  rare  gifts,  and  all  of  whom  glowed  with 
a  spark  of  the  genuine  literary  fire.  But  Shake- 
speare was  the  sun  in  the  firmament :  when  his  light 
shone,  the  fires  of  all  contemporaries  paled  in  the 
contemporary  playgoer's  eye.  There  is  forcible 
and  humorous  portrayal  of  human  frailty  and 
eccentricity  in  plays  of  Shakespeare's  contem- 
porary, Ben  Jonson.  Ben  Jonson  was  a  classical 
scholar,  which  Shakespeare  was  not.  Jonson  was 
as  well  versed  in  Roman  history  as  a  college  tutor. 
But  when  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson  both  tried 
their  hands  at  dramatising  episodes  in  Roman 
history,  the  Elizabethan  public  of  all  degrees  of 
intelligence  welcomed  Shakespeare's  efforts  with  an 
enthusiasm  which  they  rigidly  withheld  from  Ben 
Jonson's.     This  is  how  an  ordinary  playgoer  con- 


SHAKESPEARE  AT  COURT  IN  1594<  31 

trasted  the  reception  of  Jonson's  Roman  play  of 
Catiline's  Conspiracy  with  that  of  Shakespeare's 
Roman  play  of  Julius  Ccesar: — 

So  have  I  seen  when  Caesar  would  appear. 
And  on  the  stage  at  half-sword  parley  were 
Brutus  and  Cassius — oh !  how  the  audience 
Were  ravished,  with  what  wonder  they  went  thence ; 
When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brook  a  line 
Of  tedious  though  well-laboured  Catiline. 

Shakespeare  was  the  popular  favourite.  It  is 
rare  that  the  artist  who  is  a  hero  with  the  multitude 
is  also  a  hero  with  the  cultivated  few.  But  Shake- 
speare's universality  of  appeal  was  such  as  to  include 
among  his  w^orshippers  from  the  first  the  trained 
and  the  untrained  playgoer  of  his  time. 

IV 

Very  early  in  his  career  did  Shakespeare  attract 
the  notice  of  the  cultivated  section  of  Elizabeth's 
Court,  and  hardly  sufficient  notice  has  been  taken 
by  students  of  the  poet's  biography  of  the  earliest 
recognition  accorded  him  by  the  great  queen,  her- 
self an  inveterate  lover  of  the  drama,  and  an  em- 
bodiment of  the  taste  of  the  people  in  literature. 
The  story  is  worth  retelling.  In  the  middle  of  De- 
cember 1594,  Queen  Elizabeth  removed  from  White- 
hall to  Greenwich  to  spend  Christmas  at  that  palace 
of  Greenwich  in  which  she  was  born  sixty-one  years 
earlier.  And  she  made  the  celebration  of  Christmas 
of  1594  more  memorable  than  any  other  in  the 
annals  of  her  reign  or  in  the  literary  history^  of  the 
country  by  summoning  Shakespeare  to  Court.  It 
was  less  than  eight  years  since  the  poet  had  first  set 
foot  in  the  metropolis.     His  career  was  Httle  more 


32  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

than  opened.  But  by  1594  Shakespeare  had  given 
his  countrymen  unmistakable  indications  of  the 
stuff  of  which  he  was  made.  His  progress  had 
been  more  sure  than  rapid.  A  young  man  of  two- 
and-twenty,  burdened  with  a  wife  and  three  children, 
he  had  left  his  home  in  the  little  country  town  of 
Stratford-on-Avon  in  1586  to  seek  his  fortune  in 
London.  Without  friends,  without  money,  he  had, 
like  any  other  stage-struck  youth,  set  his  heart 
on  becoming  an  actor  in  the  metropolis.  Fortune 
favoured  him.  He  sought  and  won  the  humble 
office  of  call-boy  in  a  London  playhouse;  but  no 
sooner  had  his  foot  touched  the  lowest  rung  of  the 
theatrical  ladder  than  his  genius  taught  him  that 
the  topmost  rung  was  within  his  reach.  He  tried 
his  hand  on  the  revision  of  an  old  play,  and  the 
manager  was  not  slow  to  recognise  an  unmatched 
gift  for  dramatic  writing. 

It  was  probably  not  till  1591,  when  Shakespeare 
was  twenty-seven,  that  his  earliest  original  play, 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  was  performed.  It  showed  the 
hand  of  a  beginner;  it  abounded  in  trivial  witticisms. 
But  above  all,  there  shone  out  clearly  and  unmis- 
takably the  dramatic  and  poetic  fire,  the  humorous 
outlook  on  life,  the  insight  into  human  feeling,  which 
were  to  inspire  Titanic  achievements  in  the  future. 

Soon  after,  Shakespeare  scaled  the  tragic  heights 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  he  was  hailed  as  the 
prophet  of  a  new  world  of  art.  Fashionable  London 
society  then,  as  now,  befriended  the  theatre.  Cul- 
tivated noblemen  offered  their  patronage  to  promis- 
ing writers  for  the  stage,  and  Shakespeare  soon  gained 
the  ear  of  the  young  Earl  of  Southampton,  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  and  handsome  of  the  queen's 


SHAKESPEARE'S  HISTRIONIC  REPUTE        33 

noble  courtiers,  who  was  said  to  spend  nearly  all 
his  time  in  going  to  the  playhouse  every  day.  It 
was  at  Southampton's  suggestion,  that,  in  the  week 
preceding  the  Christmas  of  1594,  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain sent  word  to  The  Theatre  in  Shoreditch, 
where  Shakespeare  was  at  work  as  playwright  and 
actor,  that  the  poet  was  expected  at  Court  on  two 
days  following  Christmas,  in  order  to  give  his  sov- 
ereign on  the  two  evenings  a  taste  of  his  quality. 
He  was  to  act  before  her  in  his  own  plays. 

It  cannot  have  been  Shakespeare's  promise  as 
an  actor  that  led  to  the  royal  sunmaons.  His  his- 
trionic fame  had  not  progressed  at  the  same  rate 
as  his  literary  repute.  He  was  never  to  win  the 
laurels  of  a  great  actor.  His  most  conspicuous 
triumph  on  the  stage  was  achieved  in  middle  life  as 
the  Ghost  in  his  own  Hamlet,  and  he  ordinarily 
confined  his  efforts  to  old  men  of  secondary  rank. 
Ample  compensation  was  provided  by  his  com- 
panions for  his  personal  deficiencies  as  an  actor  on 
his  first  visit  to  Court;  he  was  to  come  supported  by 
actors  of  the  highest  eminence  in  their  generation. 
Directions  were  given  that  the  greatest  of  the  tragic 
actors  of  the  day,  Richard  Burbage,  and  the  great- 
est of  the  comic  actors,  William  Kemp,  were  to 
bear  the  young  actor-dramatist  company.  With 
neither  of  these  was  Shakespeare's  histrionic  posi- 
tion then  or  at  any  time  comparable.  For  years 
they  were  leaders  of  the  acting  profession. 

Shakespeare's  relations  with  Burbage  and  Kemp 
were  close,  both  privately  and  professionally.  Al- 
most all  Shakespeare's  great  tragic  characters  were 
created  on  the  stage  by  Burbage,  who  had  lately 
roused  London  to  enthusiasm  by  his  stirring  presen- 


34  THE  ELIZABETHAN  TLAYGOER 

tation  of  Shakespeare's  Richard  III.  for  the  first 
time.  As  long  as  Kemp  lived,  he  conferred  a  like 
service  on  many  of  Shakespeare's  comic  characters; 
and  he  had  recently  proved  his  worth  as  a  Shake- 
spearean comedian  by  his  original  rendering  of  the 
part  of  Peter,  the  Nurse's  graceless  attendant,  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet.  Thus  stoutly  backed,  Shake- 
speare appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  royal  pres- 
ence-chamber of  Greenwich  Palace  on  the  evening 
of  St.  Stephen's  Day  (the  Boxing  Day  of  subse- 
quent generations)  in  1594. 

Extant  documentary  evidence  attests  that  Shake- 
speare and  his  two  associates  performed  one  ''comedy 
or  interlude"  on  that  night  of  Boxing  Day  in  1594, 
and  gave  another  ''comedy  or  interlude"  on  the 
next  night  but  one;  that  the  Lord  Chamberlain  paid 
the  three  men  for  their  services  the  sum  of  £13,  6s. 
8d.,  and  that  the  queen  added  to  the  honorarium, 
as  a  personal  proof  of  her  satisfaction,  the  further 
sum  of  £6,  13s.  4d.  These  were  substantial  sums 
in  those  days,  when  the  purchasing  power  of  money 
was  eight  times  as  much  as  it  is  to-day,  and  the 
three  actors'  reward  would  now  be  equivalent  to 
£160. 

Unhappily  the  record  does  not  go  beyond  the 
payment  of  the  money.  What  words  of  commen- 
dation or  encouragement  Shakespeare  received  from 
his  royal  auditor  are  not  handed  down,  nor  do  we 
know  for  certain  what  plays  were  performed  on  the 
great  occasion.  All  the  scenes  came  from  Shake- 
speare's repertory,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  infer  that 
they  were  drawn  from  Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  which 
was  always  popular  in  later  years  at  Elizabeth's 
Court,  and  from  The  Comedy  of  Errors,  where  the 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ROYAL  PATRONS     35 

farcial  confusions  and  horse-play  were  after  the 
queen's  own  heart  and  robust  taste.  But  nothing 
can  be  stated  with  absolute  certainty  except  that 
on  December  29  Shakespeare  travelled  up  the  river 
from  Greenwich  to  London  with  a  heavier  purse 
and  a  lighter  heart  than  on  his  setting  out.  That 
the  visit  had  in  all  ways  been  crowned  with  success 
there  is  ample  indirect  evidence.  He  and  his  work 
had  fascinated  his  sovereign,  and  many  a  time 
during  her  remaining  nine  years  of  life  was  she  to 
seek  delight  again  in  the  renderings  of  plays  by 
himself  and  his  fellow-actors  at  her  palaces  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames.  A\Tien.  Shakespeare  was 
penning  his  new  play  of  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  next  year,  he  could  not  forbear  to  make  a 
passing  obeisance  of  gallantry  (in  that  vein  for 
which  the  old  spinster  queen  was  always  thirsting) 
to  ''a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  West/'  who  passed 
her  Ufe  '4n  maiden  meditation,  fancy  free." 

Although  literature  and  art  can  flourish  without 
royal  favour  and  royal  patronage,  still  it  is  rare  that 
royal  patronage  has  any  other  effect  than  that  of 
raising  those  who  are  its  objects  in  the  estimation 
of  contemporaries.  The  interest  that  Shakespeare's 
work  excited  at  Court  was  continuous  throughout 
his  life.  When  James  I.  ascended  the  throne, 
no  author  was  more  frequently  honoured  by 
^'command"  performances  of  his  plsLjs  in  the 
presence  of  the  sovereign.  And  then,  as  now, 
the  playgoer's  appreciation  was  quickened  by  his 
knowledge  that  the  play  they  were  witnessing  had 
been  produced  before  the  Court  at  Whitehall  a  few 
days  earlier.  Shakespeare's  publishers  were  not 
above  advertising  facts  hke  these,  as  may  be  seen  by 


36  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

a  survey  of  the  title-pages  of  editions  published  in 
his  life-time .  ' '  The  pleasant  conceited  comedy  called 
Lovers  Labour^ s  LosV^  was  advertised  with  the  ap- 
pended words,  '^as  it  was  presented  before  her  high- 
ness this  last  Christmas."  ^'A  most  pleasant  and 
excellent  conceited  comedy  of  Sir  John  Falstaff  and 
the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor''  was  stated  to  have 
been  '^divers  times  acted  both  before  her  majesty 
and  elsewhere."  The  great  play  of  Lear  was  ad- 
vertised, ''as  it  was  played  before  the  king's  majesty 
at  Whitehall  on  St.  Stephen's  night  in  the  Christ- 
mas holidays." 


Although  Shakespeare's  illimitable  command  of 
expression,  his  universality  of  knowledge  and  in- 
sight, cannot  easily  be  overlooked  by  any  man  or 
woman  of  ordinary"  human  faculty,  still,  from  some 
points  of  view,  there  is  ground  for  surprise  that  the 
Elizabethan  playgoer's  enthusiasm  for  Shakespeare's 
work  was  so  marked  and  unequivocal  as  we  know 
that  it  was. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  physical  con- 
ditions of  the  theatre,  the  methods  of  stage  repre- 
sentation, in  Shakespeare's  day.  Theatres  were  in 
\/  their  infancy.  The  theatre  was  a  new  institution  in 
social  life  for  Shakespeare's  public,  and  the  whole 
system  of  the  theatrical  world  came  into  being 
after  Shakespeare  came  into  the  world.  In  esti- 
mating Shakespeare's  genius  one  ought  to  bear  in 
mind  that  he  was  a  pioneer — almost  the  creator  or 
first  designer — of  English  drama,  as  well  as  the 
practised  workman  in  unmatched  perfection.  There 
were  before  his  day  some  efforts  made  at  dramatic 


THE  FIRST  THEATRE  IN  ENGLAND  37 

representation.  The  Middle  Ages  had  their  miracle 
plays  and  moralities  and  interludes.  But  of  poetic, 
literary,  romantic  drama,  England  knew  nothing  until 
Shakespeare  was  of  age.  Marlowe,  who  in  his  early 
years  inaugurated  English  tragedy,  was  Shake- 
speare's senior  by  only  two  months.  It  was  not  till 
1576,  when  Shakespeare  was  twelve,  that  London 
for  the  first  time  possessed  a  theatre — a  building 
definitely  built  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  plays. 
Before  that  year  inn-yards  or  platforms,  which  were 
improvised  in  market-places  or  fields,  served  for 
the  performance  of  interludes  or  moralities. 

Nor  was  it  precisely  in  London  proper  that  this 
primal  theatre,  which  is  known  in  history  simply 
as  The  Theatre,  was  set  up.  London  in  Shake- 
speare's day  was  a  small  town,  barely  a  mile  square, 
with  a  population  little  exceeding  60,000  persons. 
Within  the  circuit  of  the  city-walls  vacant  spaces 
were  sparse,  and  public  opinion  deprecated  the 
erection  of  buildings  upon  them.  Moreover,  the 
puritan  clergy  and  their  pious  flocks,  who  constituted 
an  active  section  of  the  citizens,  were  inclined  to 
resist  the  conversion  of  any  existing  building  into 
such  a  Satanic  trap  for  unwary  souls  as  they  be- 
lieved a  playhouse  of  necessity  to  be. 

It  was,  accordingly,  in  the  fields  near  London, 
not  in  London  itself,  that  the  first  theatre  was  set 
up.  Adjoining  the  city  lay  pleasant  meadows, 
which  were  bright  in  spring-time  with  daisies  and 
violets.  Green  lanes  conducted  the  wayfarer  to 
the  rural  retreat  of  Islington,  and  citizens  went 
for  change  of  air  to  the  rustic  seclusion  of  Mary- 
le-bone.  A  site  for  the  first-born  of  London  play- 
houses was  chosen  in  the  spacious  fields  of  Finsbury 


38  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

and  Shoreditch,  which  the  Great  Eastern  Railway 
now  occupies.  The  innovation  of  a  theatre,  even 
though  it  were  placed  outside  the  walls  of  the  city, 
excited  serious  misgiving  among  the  godly  minority. 
But,  after  much  controversy  the  battle  was  finally 
won  by  the  supporters  of  the  play,  and  The  Theatre 
was  launched  on  a  prosperous  career.  Two  or  three 
other  theatres  quickly  sprang  up  in  neighbouring 
parts  of  London's  environment.  When  Shakespeare 
was  reaching  the  zenith  of  his  career,  the  centre 
of  theatrical  life  was  transferred  from  Shoreditch  to 
the  Southwark  bank  of  the  river  Thames,  at  the 
south  side  of  London  Bridge,  which  lay  outside  the 
city's  boundaries,  but  was  easy  of  access  to  resi- 
dents within  them.  It  was  at  the  Globe  Theatre 
on  Bankside,  which  was  reached  by  bridge  or  by 
boat  from  the  city-side  of  the  river,  that  Shake- 
spearean drama  won  its  most  glorious  triumphs. 

VI 

Despite  the  gloomy  warnings  of  the  preachers, 
the  new  London  theatres  had  for  the  average 
Elizabethan  all  the  fascination  that  a  new  toy  has 
for  a  child.  The  average  Elizabethan  repudiated 
the  jeremiads  of  the  ultra-pious,  and  instantane- 
ously became  an  enthusiastic  playgoer.  During 
the  last  year  of  the  sixteenth  century,  an  intelligent 
visitor  to  London,  Thomas  Platter,  a  native  of  Basle, 
whose  journal  has  recently  been  discovered, ^   de- 

^  Professor  Binz  of  Basle  printed  in  September,  1899?  some 
extracts  from  Thomas  Platter's  unpublished  diary  of  travels  un- 
der the  title:  Londoner  Theater  und  Schauspiele  im  Jahre  1599- 
Platter  spent  a  month  in  London — September  18  to  October  20, 
1599.     Platter's  manuscript  is  in  the  Library  of  Basle  University. 


DISCOMFORTS  OF  AN  AUDIENCE  39 

scribed  with  ingenuous  sjTnpathy  the  delight  which 
the  populace  displayed  in  the  new  playhouses. 

Some  attractions  which  the  theatres  offered 
had  httle  concern  mth  the  drama.  Their  ad- 
vantages included  the  privileges  of  eating  and 
drinking  while  the  play  was  in  progress.  After  the 
play  there  was  invariably  a  dance  on  the  stage, 
often  a  brisk  and  boisterous  Irish  jig. 

Other  features  of  the  entertainment  seem  to 
have  been  less  exhilarating.  The  mass  of  the 
spectators  filled  the  pit,  where  there  was  standing 
room  only;  there  were  no  seats.  The  admission 
rarely  cost  more  than  a  penny;  but  there  was  no 
roof.  The  rain  beat  at  pleasure  on  the  heads  of 
the '^ penny"  auditors;  while  pickpockets  commonly 
plied  their  trade  among  them  without  much  hin- 
drance when  the  piece  absorbed  the  attention  of  the 
^' house."  Seats  or  benches  were  only  to  be  found 
in  the  two  galleries,  the  larger  portions  of  which 
were  separated  into  ''rooms"  or  boxes;  prices  there 
ranged  from  twopence  to  half-a-crown.  If  the  play- 
goer had  plenty  of  money  at  his  command  he  could, 
according  to  the  German  visitor,  hire  not  only  a 
seat  but  a  cushion  to  elevate  his  stature;  ''so  that," 
says  our  author,  "he  might  not  only  see  the  play, 
but" — what  is  also  often  more  important  for  rich 
people — "be  seen"  by  the  audience  to  be  occu- 
pying a  specially  distinguished  place.  Fashionable 
playgoers  of  the  male  sex  might,  if  they  opened 
their  purses  wide  enough,  occupy  stools  on  the  wide 
platform-stage.  Such  a  practice  proved  embar- 
rassing, not  only  to  the  performers,  but  to  those 
who  had  to  content  themselves  with  the  penny  pit. 
Standing  in  front  and  by  the  sides  of  the  projecting 


40  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

stage,  they  could  often  only  catch  glimpses  of  the 
actors  through  chinks  in  serried  ranks  of  stools. 

The  histrionic  and  scenic  conditions,  in  which 
Shakespeare's  plays  were  originally  produced,  pre- 
sent a  further  series  of  disadvantages  which,  from 
any  modern  point  of  view,  render  the  more  amaz- 
ing the  unqualified  enthusiasm  of  the  EHzabethan 
playgoer. 

There  was  no  scenery,  although  there  were  crude 
endeavours  to  create  scenic  illusion  by  means  of 
'^ properties"  like  rocks,  tombs,  caves,  trees,  tables, 
chairs,  and  pasteboard  dishes  of  food.  There  was 
at  the  outset  no  music,  save  flourishes  on  trumpets 
at  the  opening  of  the  play  and  between  the  acts. 
The  scenes  within  each  act  were  played  continu- 
ously without  pause.  The  bare  boards  of  the  plat- 
form-stage, which  no  proscenium  nor  curtain  dark- 
ened, projected  so  far  into  the  auditorium,  that  the 
actors  spoke  in  the  very  centre  of  the  house.  Trap- 
doors were  in  use  for  the  entrance  of  '^ghosts"  and 
other  mysterious  personages.  At  the  back  of  the 
stage  was  a  raised  platform  or  balcony,  from  which 
often  hung  loose  curtains;  through  them  the  actors 
passed  to  the  forepart  of  the  stage.  The  balcony 
was  pressed  into  the  service  when  the  text  of  the 
play  indicated  that  the  speakers  were  not  actually 
standing  on  the  same  level.  From  the  raised  plat- 
form JuHet  addressed  Romeo  in  the  balcony  scene, 
and  the  citizens  of  Angers  in  King  John  held  col- 
loquy with  the  English  besiegers.  This  was,  in- 
deed, almost  the  furthest  limit  of  the  Elizabethan 
stage  -  manager's  notion  of  scenic  realism.  The 
boards,  which  were  bare  save  for  the  occasional 
presence  of  rough  properties,  were  held  to  present 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  ACTOR'S  COSTUME       41 

adequate  semblance,  as  the  play  demanded,  of  a 
king's  throne-room,  a  chapel,  a  forest,  a  ship  at  sea, 
a  mountainous  pass,  a  market-place,  a  battle-field, 
or  a  churchyard. 

The  costumes  had  no  pretensions  to  fit  the 
period  or  place  of  the  action.  They  were  the 
ordinary  dresses  of  various  classes  of  the  day,  but 
were  often  of  rich  material,  and  in  the  height  of 
the  current  fashion.  False  hair  and  beards^  crowns 
and  sceptres,  mitres  and  croziers,  armour,  helmets, 
shields,  vizors,  and  weapons  of  war,  hoods,  bands, 
and  cassocks,  were  mainly  relied  on  to  indicate 
among  the  characters  differences  of  rank  or  pro- 
fession. 

The  foreign  observer,  Thomas  Platter  of  Basle, 
was  impressed  by  the  splendour  of  the  actors' 
costumes.  He  accounted  for  it  in  a  manner  that 
negatives  any  suggestion  of  dramatic  propriety : — 

''The  players  wear  the  most  costly  and  beauti- 
ful dresses,  for  it  is  the  custom  in  England,  that 
when  noblemen  or  knights  die,  they  leave  their 
finest  clothes  to  their  servants,  who,  since  it  would 
not  be  fitting  for  them  to  wear  such  splendid  gar- 
ments, sell  them  soon  afterwards  to  the  players  for 
a  small  sum." 

The  most  striking  defect  in  the  practice  of  the 
EHzabethan  playhouse,  according  to  accepted  no- 
tions, lies  in  the  allotment  of  the  female  roles.  It 
was  thought  unseemly  for  women  to  act  at  all. 
Female  parts  were  played  by  boys  or  men — a  sub- 
stitution lacking,  from  the  modern  point  of  view,  in 
grace  and  seemHness.  But  the  standard  of  pro- 
priety in  such  matters  varies  from  age  to  age. 
Shakespeare  alludes  quite  complacently  to  the  ap- 


42  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

pearance  of  boys  and  men  in  women's  parts.  He 
makes  Rosalind  say,  laughingly  and  saucily,  to  the 
men  of  the  audience  in  the  epilogue  to  As  You  Like 
It,  ''If  I  were  a  woman  I  would  kiss  as  many  of  you 
as  had  beards  that  pleased  me."  "If  I  were  a 
woman,"  she  says.  The  jest  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  speaker  was  not  a  woman  but  a  boy.  Similarly, 
Cleopatra  on  her  downfall  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
(V.  ii.  220),  laments 

the  quick  comedians 
Extemporally  will  stage  us  .  .  .  and  I  shall  see 
Some  squeaking  Cleopatra  boy  my  greatness. 

The  experiment  of  entrusting  a  boy  with  the 
part  of  Ophelia  was  lately  tried  in  London  not 
unsuccessfully;  but  it  is  difficult  to  realise  how 
a  boy  or  young  man  could  adequately  interpret 
most  of  Shakespeare's  female  characters.  It  seems 
almost  sacrilegious  to  conceive  the  part  of  Cleo- 
patra, the  most  highly  sensitised  in  its  minutest 
details  of  all  dramatic  portrayals  of  female  charac- 
ter,— it  seems  almost  sacrilegious  to  submit  Cleo- 
patra's subhmity  of  passion  for  interpretation  by 
an  unfledged  representative  of  the  other  sex.  Yet 
such  solecisms  were  imperative  under  the  theatrical 
system  of  the  late  sixteenth  and  early  seventeenth 
century.  Men  taking  women's  parts  seem  to  have 
worn  masks,  but  that  can  hardly  have  improved 
matters.  Flute,  when  he  complains  that  it  would 
hardly  befit  him  to  play  a  woman's  part  because 
he  had  a  beard  coming,  is  bidden  by  his  resourceful 
manager.  Quince,  play  Thisbe  in  a  ''mask."  At 
times  actors  who  had  long  lost  the  roses  of  youth 
masqueraded  in  women's  roles.  Thereby  the  un- 
gainliness   which   marked   the   distribution   of   the 


BOYS  IX  WOMEN'S  PARTS  43 

cast  in  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  playhouses  was 
often  forced  into  stronger  Hght. 

It  was  not  till  the  seventeenth  century  was  well 
advanced  that  women  were  permitted  to  act  in 
public  theatres.  Then  the  gracelessness  of  the 
masculine  method  was  acknowledged  and  deplored. 
It  was  the  character  of  Desdemona  which  was  first 
undertaken  by  a  woman,  and  the  absurdity  of  the 
old  practice  was  noticed  in  the  prologue  written  for 
this  revival  of  Othello,  which  was  made  memorable 
by  the  innovation.  Some  lines  in  the  prologue 
describe  the  earlier  system  thus: — 

For  to  speak  truth,  men  act,  that  are  between 
Forty  or  fifty,  wenches  of  fifteen. 
With  bone  so  large  and  nerve  so  uncompliant. 
When  you  call  Desdemona,  enter  Giant. 

Profound  commiseration  seems  due  to  the 
Elizabethan  playgoer,  who  was  Uable  to  have  his 
faith  in  the  tenderness  and  gentleness  of  Desde- 
mona rudely  shaken  by  the  irruption  on  the  stage  of 
a  brawny,  broad-shouldered  athlete,  masquerading 
in  her  sweet  name.  Boys  or  men  of  all  shapes  and 
sizes  squeaking  or  bawling  out  the  tender  and 
pathetic  lines  of  Shakespeare's  heroines,  and  no 
joys  of  scenery  to  distract  the  playgoer  from  the  un- 
couth inconsistency!  At  first  sight  it  would  seem 
that  the  Elizabethan  playgoer's  lot  was  anything 
but  happy. 

VII 

The  EUzabethan's  hard  fate  strangely  contrasts 
with  the  situation  of  the  playgoer  of  the  nineteenth 
or  twentieth  century.     To  the  latter  Shakespeare  is 


44  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

presented  in  a  dazzling  plenitude  of  colour.  Music 
punctuates  not  merely  intervals  between  scenes  and 
acts,  but  critical  pauses  in  the  speeches  of  the 
actors.  Pictorial  tableaux  enthral  the  most  callous 
onlooker.  Very  striking  is  the  contrast  offered  by 
the  methods  of  representation  accepted  "wdth  en- 
thusiasm by  the  Elizabethan  playgoer  and  those 
deemed  essential  by  the  fashionable  modern  mana- 
ger. There  seems  a  rehsh  of  barbarism  in  the 
ancient  system  when  it  is  compared  with  the  one 
now  in  vogue. 

I  fear  the  final  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the 
contrast  is,  contrary  to  expectation,  more  credit- 
able to  our  ancestors  than  to  ourselves.  The 
needful  dramatic  illusion  was  obviously  evoked  in 
the  playgoer  of  the  past  with  an  ease  that  is  un- 
known to  the  present  patrons  of  the  stage.  The 
absence  of  scenery,  the  substitution  of  boys  and  men 
for  women,  could  only  have  passed  muster  with 
the  Elizabethan  spectator  because  he  was  able  to 
realise  the  dramatic  potency  of  the  poet's  work 
without  am^,  or  an}^  but  the  slightest,  adventitious 
aid  outside  the  words  of  the  play. 

The  Elizabethan  playgoer  needs  no  pity.  It  is 
ourselves  who  are  deserving  objects  of  compassion, 
because  we  lack  those  qualities,  the  possession  of 
which  enabled  the  Elizabethan  to  acknowledge  in 
Shakespeare's  work,  despite  its  manner  of  produc- 
tion, ''the  delight  and  wonder  of  his  stage."  The 
imaginative  faculty  was  far  from  universal  among 
the  Elizabethan  playgoers.  The  play  going  mob 
always  includes  groundlings  who  delight  exclusive- 
ly in  dumb  shows  and  noise.  Many  of  Shake- 
speare's contemporaries  complained  that  there  were 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ADVICE  TO  THE  ACTOR      45 

playgoers  who  approved  nothing  ''but  puppetry 
and  loved  ridiculous  antics,"  and  that  there  were 
men  who,  going  to  the  playhouse  only  'Ho  laugh 
and  feed  fool-fat,"  "checked  at  all  goodness  there." ^ 
No  public  of  any  age  or  country  is  altogether  free 
from  such  infirmities.  But  the  reception  accorded 
to  Shakespeare's  plays  in  the  theatre  of  his  day, 
in  contemporary  theatrical  conditions,  is  proof 
positive  of  a  signal  imaginative  faculty  in  an  ex- 
ceptionally large  proportion  of  the  playgoers. 

To  the  Elizabethan  actor  a  warm  tribute  is  due. 
Shakespeare  has  declared  with  emphasis  that  no 
amount  of  scenery  can  secure  genuine  success  on  the 
stage  for  a  great  work  of  the  imagination.  He  is 
no  less  emphatic  in  the  value  he  sets  on  competent 
acting.  In  Hamlet,  as  every  reader  will  remember, 
the  dramatist  points  out  the  perennial  defects  of 
the  actor,  and  shows  how  they  may  and  must  be 
corrected.  He  did  all  he  could  for  the  Elizabethan 
playgoer  in  the  way  of  insisting  that  the  art  of  acting 
must  be  studied  seriously  and  that  the  dramatist's 
words  must  reach  the  ears  of  the  audience,  clearly 
and  intelligibly  enunciated. 

"Speak  the  speech,  I  pray  you,"  he  tells  the 
actor,  "as  I  pronounce  it  to  you,  trippingly  on  the 
tongue ;  but  if  you  mouth  it,  as  many  of  your  players 
do,  I  had  as  lief  the  town-crier  spoke  my  lines.  Nor 
do  not  saw  the  air  too  much  with  your  hand,  thus ; 
but  use  all  gently:  for  in  the  very  torrent,  tempest, 
and — as  I  may  say — whirlwind  of  passion,  you  must 
acquire  and  beget  a  temperance,  that  may  give  it 
smoothness. 

"Be  not  too  tame  neither,   but  let  your  own 

^  Chapman's  Revenge  of  Bussy  D'Amhois,  Act  I.,  Sc.  i. 


46  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

discretion  be  your  tutor:  suit  the  action  to  the  word, 
the  word  to  the  action;  with  this  special  observ- 
ance, that  you  o'erstep  not  the  modesty  of  nature. 
O!  there  be  players,  that  I  have  seen  play,  and 
heard  others  praise,  and  that  highly,  not  to  speak 
it  profanely,  that,  neither  having  the  accent  of 
Christians  nor  the  gait  of  Christian,  pagan,  nor  man, 
have  so  strutted  and  bellowed  that  I  have  thought 
some  of  nature's  journejinen  had  made  men  and 
not  made  them  well,  they  imitated  humanity  so 
abominably." 

The  player  amiably  responds:  '^I  hope  we  have 
reformed  that  indifferently  with  us."  Shakespeare 
in  the  person  of  Hamlet  retorts  in  a  tone  of  some 
impatience:  ''O!  reform  it  altogether.  And  let 
those  that  play  your  clowns  speak  no  more  than  is 
set  down  for  them."  The  applause  which  wel- 
comed Shakespeare's  masterpieces  on  their  first 
representation  is  adequate  evidence  that  the  leading 
Elizabethan  actors  in  the  main  obeyed  these  in- 
structions. 

VIII 

Nevertheless  the  final  success  of  a  great  imagina- 
tive play  on  the  stage  does  not  depend  entirely  on 
the  competence  of  the  actor.  Encircling  and  de- 
termining all  conditions  is  the  fitness  of  the  audience. 
A  great  imaginative  play  well  acted  will  not  achieve 
genuine  success  unless  the  audience  has  at  com- 
mand sufficient  imaginative  power  to  induce  in 
them  an  active  sympathy  with  the  efforts,  not  only 
of  the  actor,  but  of  the  dramatist. 

It  is  not  merely  in  the  first  chorus  to  Henry  V. 
that  Shakespeare  has  declared  his  conviction  that 


THE  ACTOR  AND  THE  AUDIENCE  47 

the  creation  of  the  needful  dramatic  illusion  is 
finally  due  to  exercise  of  the  imagination  on  the 
part  of  the  audience.^  Theseus,  in  A  Midsummer 
Nighfs  Dream,  in  the  capacity  of  a  spectator  of  a 
play  which  is  rendered  by  indifferent  actors,  makes 
a  somewhat  depreciatory  reflection  on  the  charac- 
ter of  acting,  whatever  its  degree  or  capacity. 
But  the  value  of  Theseus's  deliverance  lies  in  its 
clear  definition  of  the  part  which  the  audience  has 
to  play,  if  it  do  its  duty  by  great  drama. 

"  The  best  in  this  kind,"  says  Theseus  of  actors, 
^'are  but  shadows,  and  the  worst  are  no  worse,  if 
imagination  amend  the^n."  To  which  Hippolyta, 
less  tolerant  than  Theseus  of  the  incapacity  of  the 
players  to  whom  she  is  listening,  tartly  retorts:  '^It 
must  be  your  imagination  (i.e.,  the  spectator's), 
then,  and  not  theirs"  (i.e.,  the  actors'). 

These  sentences  mean  that  at  its  very  best 
acting  is  but  a  shadow  or  simulation  of  life,  and 
that  acting  at  its  very  worst  is  likewise  a  shadow 
or  simulation.  But  the  imagination  of  the  audience 
is  supreme  controller  of  the  theatre,  and  can,  if  it 
be  of  adequate  intensity,  even  cause  inferior  acting 
to  jdeld  effects  hardly  distinguishable  from  those  of 
the  best. 

It  would  be  unwise  to  press  Theseus's  words  to 
extreme  limits.  All  that  it  behoves  us  to  deduce 
from  them  is  the  unimpeachable  principle  that  the 
success  of  the  romantic  drama  on  the  stage  depends 
not  merely  on  the  actors'  gift  of  imagination,  but 
to  an  even  larger  extent  on  the  possession  by  the 
audience  of  a  similar  faculty.  Good  acting  is  need- 
ful.    Scenery  in  moderation  will  aid  the  dramatic 

^  See  pages  20-21  supra. 


48  THE  ELIZABETHAN  PLAYGOER 

illusion,  although  excess  of  scenery  or  scenic 
machinery  may  destroy  it  altogether.  Dramatic 
illusion  must  ultimately  spring  from  the  active  and 
unrestricted  exercise  of  the  imaginative  faculty  by 
author,  actor,  and  audience  in  joint-partnership. 

What  is  the  moral  to  be  deduced  from  any 
examination  of  the  Elizabethan  playgoer's  attitude 
to  Shakespeare's  plays?  It  is  something  of  this 
kind.  We  must  emulate  our  ancestors'  command 
of  the  imagination.  We  must  seek  to  enlarge  our 
imaginative  sjonpathy  with  Shakespeare's  poetry. 
The  imaginative  faculty  will  not  come  to  us  at  our 
call;  it  will  not  come  to  us  by  the  mechanism  of 
study;  it  may  not  come  to  us  at  all.  It  is  easier  to 
point  out  the  things  that  will  hinder  than  the  things 
that  will  hasten  its  approach.  Absorption  in  the 
material  needs  of  life,  the  concentration  of  energy 
on  the  increase  of  worldly  goods,  leave  little  room 
for  the  entrance  into  the  brain  of  the  imaginative 
faculty,  or  for  its  free  play  when  it  is  there.  The 
best  way  of  seeking  it  is  by  reading  the  greatest  of 
great  imaginative  literature,  by  freely  jdelding  the 
mind  to  its  influence,  and  by  exercising  the  mind 
under  its  sway.  And  the  greatest  imaginative 
Hterature  that  was  ever  penned  was  penned  by 
Shakespeare.  No  counsel  is  wiser  than  that  of 
those  two  personal  friends  of  his,  who  were  the  first 
editors  of  his  work  and  penned  words  to  this  effect : 
''Read  him  therefore,  and  again  and  again,  and 
then  if  you  do  not  like  him,  surely  you  are  in  some 
manifest  danger"  of  losing  a  saving  grace  of  Hfe. 


Ill 

SHAKESPEARE    IN    ORAL    TRADITION  i 


Biographers  did  not  lie  in  wait  for  men  of  eminence 
on  their  death-beds  in  Shakespeare's  epoch.  To  the 
advantage  of  Hterature,  and  to  the  less  than  might 
be  anticipated  disadvantage  of  history  (for  your 
death-bed  biographer,  writing  under  kinsfolk's  tear- 
laden  eyes,  must  needs  be  smoother-tongued  than 
truthful),  the  place  of  the  modern  memoir-writer 
was  filled  in  Shakespeare's  day  by  friendly  poets, 
who  were  usually  alert  to  pay  fit  homage  in  elegiac 
verse  to  a  dead  hero's  achievements.  In  that  re- 
gard, Shakespeare's  poetic  friends  showed  at  his 
death  exceptional  energy.  During  his  lifetime  men 
of  letters  had  bestowed  on  his  ''reigning  wit,"  on 
his  kingly  supremacy  of  genius,  most  generous  stores 
of  eulogy.  Within  two  years  of  the  end  a  son- 
neteer had  justly  deplored  that  something  of  Shake- 
speare's own  power,  to  which  he  deprecated  pre- 
tension, was  needful  to  those  who  should  praise  him 
aright.  But  when  Shakespeare  lay  dead  in  the 
spring  of  1616,  when,  as  one  of  his  admirers  topically 
phrased  it,  he  had  withdrawn  from  the  stage  of  the 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  and 
After,  February,  1902. 

49 


50         SHAKESrEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

world  to  the  ''tiring-house"  or  dressing-room  of 
the  grave,  the  flood  of  panegyrical  lamentation  was 
not  checked  by  the  sense  of  literary  inferiority  which 
in  all  sincerity  oppressed  the  spirits  of  surviving 
companions. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  the  elegies  was  a  sonnet  by 
WilUam  Basse,  who  gave  picturesque  expression  to 
the  conviction  that  Shakespeare  would  enjoy  for 
all  time  an  unique  reverence  on  the  part  of  his 
countrymen.  In  the  opening  lines  of  his  poem 
Basse  apostrophised  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  the 
dramatist  Francis  Beaumont,  three  poets  who  had 
already  received  the  recognition  of  burial  in  West- 
minster Abbey — Beaumont,  the  youngest  of  them, 
only  five  weeks  before  Shakespeare  died.  To  this 
honoured  trio  Basse  made  appeal  to  ''lie  a  thought 
more  nigh"  one  another,  so  as  to  make  room  for 
the  newly-dead  Shakespeare  within  their  "sacred 
sepulchre."  Then,  in  the  second  half  of  his  sonnet, 
the  poet,  developing  a  new  thought,  argued  that 
Shakespeare,  in  right  of  his  pre-eminence,  merited 
a  burial-place  apart  from  all  his  fellows.  With  a 
glance  at  Shakespeare's  distant  grave  in  the  chancel 
of  Stratford-on-Avon  Church,  the  writer  exclaimed: 

Under  this  carved  marble  of  thine  own 

Sleep,  brave  tragedian,  Shakespeare,  sleep  alone. 

The  fine  sentiment  found  many  a  splendid  echo. 
It  resounded  in  Ben  Jonson's  lines  of  1623: — 

My  Shakespeare,  rise !     I  will  not  lodge  thee  by 

Chaucer,  or  Spenser,  or  bid  Beaumont  lie 

A  little  further  to  make  thee  a  room. 

rrhou  art  a  monument  without  a  tomb, 

And  art  alive  still,  while  thy  book  doth  live 

And  we  have  wits  to  read  and  praise  to  give. 


CONTEMPORARY  EULOGY  51 

Milton  wrote  a  few  years  later,  in  1630,  how  Shake- 
speare, ''sepulchred"  in  ''the  monument"  of  his 
writings, 

in  such  pomp  doth  lie. 
That  kings  for  such  a  tomb  would  wish  to  die. 

Never  was  a  glorious  immortality  foretold  for 
any  man  with  more  solemn  confidence  than  it  was 
foretold  for  Shakespeare  at  his  death  by  his  circle 
of  adorers.  A\Tien  Time,  one  elegist  said,  should 
dissolve  his  "Stratford  monument,"  the  laurel  about 
Shakespeare's  brow  would  wear  its  greenest  hue. 
Shakespeare's  critical  friend,  Ben  Jonson,  was  but 
one  of  a  numerous  band  who  imagined  the  "sweet 
swan  of  Avon,"  "the  star  of  poets,"  shining  for 
ever  as  a  constellation  in  the  firmament.  Such  was 
the  invariable  temper  in  which  literary  men  gave 
vent  to  their  grief  on  learning  the  death  of  the 
"beloved  author,"  "the  famous  scenicke  poet," 
"the  admirable  dramaticke  poet,"  "that  famous 
writer  and  actor,"  "worthy  master  Wilham  Shake- 
speare" of  Stratford-on-Avon. 

II 

Unquahfied  and  sincere  was  the  eulog}^  awarded 
to  Shakespeare,  alike  in  his  lifetime  and  immedi- 
ately after  his  death.  But  the  spirit  and  custom 
of  the  age  confided  to  future  generations  the  duty 
of  first  offering  him  the  more  formal  honour  of 
prosaic  and  critical  biograph}^  The  biographic 
memoir,  which  consists  of  precise  and  duly  authenti- 
cated dates  and  records  of  domestic  and  profes- 
sional experiences  and  achievements,  was  in  England 
a  comparatively  late  growth.     It  had  no  existence 


52         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

when  Shakespeare  died.  It  began  to  blossom  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  did  not  flourish  luxuri- 
antly till  a  far  more  recent  period.  Meagre  seeds 
of  the  modern  art  of  biography  were,  indeed,  sown 
within  a  few  years  of  Shakespeare's  death;  but  out- 
side the  unique  little  field  of  Izaak  Walton's  tillage, 
the  first  sproutings  were  plants  so  different  from  the 
fully  developed  tree,  that  they  can  with  difficulty 
be  identified  with  the  genus.  Apart  from  Izaak 
Walton's  exceptional  efforts,  the  biographical  spirit 
first  betrayed  itself  in  England  in  slender,  occa- 
sional pamphlets  of  rhapsodical  froth,  after  the 
model  of  the  funeral  sermon.  There  quickly  fol- 
lowed more  substantial  volumes  of  collective  bi- 
ography which  mainly  supplied  arbitrarily  com- 
piled, if  extended,  catalogues  of  names.  To  each 
name  were  attached  brief  annotations,  which  oc- 
casionally offered  a  fact  or  a  date,  but  commonly 
consisted  of  a  few  sentences  of  grotesque,  uncritical 
eulogy. 

Fuller's  Worthies  of  England,  which  was  begun 
about  1643  and  was  published  posthumously  in 
1662,  was  the  first  English  compendium  of  biography 
of  this  aboriginal  pattern.  Shakespeare  naturally 
found  place  in  Fuller's  merry  pages,  for  the  author 
loved  in  his  eccentric  fashion  his  country's  litera- 
ture, and  he  had  sought  the  society  of  those  who 
had  come  to  close  quarters  with  literary  heroes  of 
the  past  generation.  Of  that  generation  his  own 
life  just  touched  the  fringe,  he  being  eight  years 
old  when  Shakespeare  died.  Fuller  described  the 
dramatist  as  a  native  of  St  rat  ford-on- Avon,  who 
''was  in  some  sort  a  compound  of  three  eminent 
poets" — Martial,    ''in    the    warlike    sound    of    his 


FULLER'S  BIOGRAPHICAL  EXPERIMENT      53 

name";  Ovid,  for  the  naturalness  and  wit  of  his 
poetry;  and  Plautus,  alike  for  the  extent  of  his 
comic  power  and  his  lack  of  scholarly  training.  He 
was,  Fuller  continued,  an  eminent  instance  of  the 
rule  that  a  poet  is  bom  not  made.  "Though  his 
genius,"  he  warns  us,  ''generally  was  jocular  and 
inchning  him  to  festivity,  yet  he  could,  when  so 
disposed,  be  solemn  and  serious."  His  comedies, 
Fuller  adds,  would  rouse  laughter  even  in  the  weep- 
ing philosopher  Heraclitus,  while  his  tragedies 
would  bring  tears  even  to  the  eyes  of  the  laughing 
philosopher  Democritus. 

Of  positive  statements  respecting  Shakespeare's 
career  Fuller  is  economical.  He  commits  himself  to 
nothing  more  than  may  be  gleaned  from  the  follow- 
ing sentences: — 

Many  were  the  wit-combats  betwixt  him  and 
Ben  Jonson ;  which  two  I  behold  Uke  a  Spanish  great 
galleon  and  an  English  man-of-war;  master  Jonson 
(Hke  the  former)  was  built  far  higher  in  learning; 
soUd,  but  slow,  in  his  performances.  Shakespeare, 
with  the  English  man-of-war,  lesser  in  bulk,  but 
Hghter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack 
about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by  the 
quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention.  He  died  Anno 
Domini  1616,  and  was  buried  at  Stratford-upon- 
Avon,  the  town  of  his  nativity. 

Fuller's  successors  did  their  work  better  in  some 
regards,  because  they  laboured  in  narrower  fields. 
Many  of  them  showed  a  welcome  appreciation  of  a 
main  source  of  their  country's  permanent  reputation 
by  confining  their  energies  to  the  production  of 
biographical  catalogues,  not  of  all  manners  of 
heroes,  but  solely  of  those  who  had  distinguished 


54         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

themselves  in  poetry  and  the  drama.  ^  In  1675  a 
biographical  catalogue  of  poets  was  issued  for  the 
first  time  in  England,  and  the  example  once  set  was 
quickly  followed.  No  less  than  three  more  efforts 
of  the  like  kind  came  to  fruition  before  the  end  of 
the  centur}\ 

In  all  four  biographical  manuals  Shakespeare 
was  accorded  more  or  less  imposing  space.  Although 
Fuller's  eccentric  compliments  were  usually  re- 
peated, they  were  mingled  with  far  more  extended 
and  discriminating  tributes.  Two  of  the  com- 
pilers designated  Shakespeare  'Hhe  glory  of  the 
English  stage";  a  third  wrote,  '^I  esteem  his  plays 
beyond  any  that  have  ever  been  published  in  our 
language";  while  the  fourth  quoted  with  approval 
Dryden's  fine  phrase:  ^'Shakespeare  was  the  Man 
who  of  all  Modem  and  perhaps  Ancient  Poets  had 
the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  Soul."  But 
the  avowed  principles  of  these  tantalising  volumes 
justify  no  expectation  of  finding  in  them  solid  in- 
formation. The  biographical  cataloguers  of  the 
seventeenth  century  did  little  more  than  proclaim 
Shakespeare  and  the  other  great  poets  of  the  country 
to  be  fit  subjects  for  formal  biography  as  soon  as 
the  type  should  be  matured.  That  was  the  message 
of  greatest  virtue  which  these  halting  chroniclers 
dehvered. 

In  Shakespeare's  case  their  message  was  not 
long    neglected.     In    1709    Nicholas    Rowe,    after- 

^  Such  a  compilation  had  been  contemplated  in  l6l4,  two 
years  before  the  dramatist  died,  by  one  of  Shakespeare's  own 
associates,  Thomas  Heywood.  Twenty-one  years  later,  in  1635, 
Heywood  spoke  of  "  committing  to  the  public  view  "  his  sum- 
mary Lives  of  the  Poets,  but  nothing  more  was  heard  of  that 
project. 


ROWE'S  BIOGRAPHY  OF  1709  55 

wards  George  the  First's  poet  laureate,  published 
the  first  professed  biography  of  the  poet.  The 
eminence  of  the  subject  justified  such  alacrity,  and 
it  had  no  precise  parallel.  More  or  less  definite 
lives  of  a  few  of  Shakespeare's  great  literary  con- 
temporaries followed  his  biography  at  long  intervals. 
But  the  whole  field  has  never  been  occupied  by  the 
professed  biographer.  In  some  cases  the  delay  has 
meant  loss  of  opportunity  for  ever.  Very  many 
distinguished  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  authors 
have  shared  the  fate  of  John  Webster,  next  to 
Shakespeare  the  most  eminent  tragic  dramatist  of 
the  era,  of  whom  no  biography  was  ever  attempted, 
and  no  positive  biographic  fact  survives. 

But  this  is  an  imperfect  statement  of  the  advan- 
tages which  Shakespeare's  career  enjoyed  above  that 
of  his  fellows  from  the  commemorative  point  of 
view.  Although  formal  biography  did  not  lay 
hand  on  his  name  for  nearly  a  century  after  his 
death,  the  authentic  tradition  of  his  life  and  work 
began  steadily  to  crystallise  in  the  minds  and  mouths 
of  men  almost  as  soon  as  he  drew  his  last  breath. 
Fuller's  characteristically  shadowy  hint  of  '^wit- 
combats  betwixt  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson" 
and  of  the  contrasted  characters  of  the  two  com- 
batants, suggests  pretty  convincingly  that  Shake- 
speare's name  presented  to  the  seventeenth-century 
imagination  and  tongue  a  better  defined  personality 
and  experience  than  the  embryonic  biographer  knew 
how  to  disclose.  The  commemorative  instinct  never 
seeks  satisfaction  in  biographic  efTort  exclusively, 
even  when  the  art  of  biography  has  ripened  into 
satisfying  fulness.  A  great  man's  reputation  and 
the  moving  incidents  of  his  career  never  live  solely 


56         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

in  the  printed  book  or  the  hterary  word.  In  a  great 
man's  life-time,  and  for  many  j^ears  after,  his  fame 
and  his  fortunes  Hve  most  effectuall}^  on  living  lips. 
The  talk  of  surviving  kinsmen,  fellow-craftsmen, 
admiring  acquaintances,  and  sympathetic  friends  is 
the  treasure-house  which  best  preserves  the  per- 
sonaUty  of  the  dead  hero  for  those  who  come  soon 
after  him.  When  biography  is  unpractised,  no 
other  treasure-house  is  available. 

The  report  of  such  converse  moves  quickly  from 
mouth  to  mouth.  In  its  progress  the  narration 
naturally  grows  fainter,  and,  when  no  biographer 
lies  in  wait  for  it,  ultimately  perishes  altogether. 
But  oral  tradition  respecting  a  great  man  whose 
work  has  fascinated  the  imagination  of  his  country- 
men comes  into  circulation  early,  persists  long, 
even  in  the  absence  of  biography,  and  safeguards 
substantial  elements  of  truth  through  man}^  genera- 
tions. Although  no  biographer  put  in  an  appear- 
ance, it  is  seldom  that  some  fragment  of  oral  tradi- 
tion respecting  a  departed  hero  is  not  committed 
to  paper  by  one  or  other  amateur  gossip  who  comes 
within  earshot  of  it  early  in  its  career.  The  casual 
unsifted  record  of  floating  anecdote  is  not  always 
above  suspicion.  As  a  rule  it  is  embodied  in  familiar 
correspondence,  or  in  diaries,  or  in  commonplace 
books,  where  clear  and  definite  language  is  rarely 
met  with;  but,  however  disappointingly  imperfect 
and  trivial,  however  disjointed,  however  deficient 
in  literary  form  the  registered  jottings  of  oral  tradi- 
tion may  be,  it  is  in  them,  if  they  exist  at  all  with 
any  title  to  credit,  that  future  ages  best  reaUse  the 
fact  that  the  great  man  was  in  plain  truth  a  Uving 
entity,  and  no  mere  shadow  of  a  name. 


ANTIQUITY  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN  TRADITION    57 

III 

When  Shakespeare  died,  on  the  23rd  of  April, 
1616,  many  men  and  women  were  ahve  who  had 
come  into  personal  association  with  him,  and  there 
were  many  more  who  had  heard  of  him  from  those 
who  had  spoken  with  him.  Apart  from  his  nu- 
merous kinsfolk  and  neighbours  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  there  was  in  London  a  large  society  of  fel- 
low-authors and  feUow-actors  with  whom  he  lived 
in  close  communion.  Very  httle  correspondence  or 
other  intimate  memorials,  whether  of  Shakespeare's 
professional  friends  or  of  his  kinsfolk  or  country 
neighbours,  survive.  Nevertheless  some  scraps  of 
the  talk  about  Shakespeare  that  circulated  among 
his  acquaintances  or  was  handed  on  by  them  to  the 
next  generation  has  been  tracked  to  written  paper 
of  the  seventeenth  century  and  to  printed  books.  A 
portion  of  these  scattered  memorabiUa  of  the  earliest 
known  oral  traditions  respecting  Shakespeare  has 
come  to  hght  very  recently;  other  portions  have 
been  long  accessible.  As  a  connected  whole  they 
have  never  been  narrowly  scrutinised,  and  I  believe 
it  may  serve  a  useful  purpose  to  consider  with  some 
minuteness  how  the  mass  of  them  came  into  being, 
and  what  is  the  sum  of  information  they  conserve. 

The  more  closely  Shakespeare's  career  is  studied 
the  plainer  it  becomes  that  his  experiences  and 
fortunes  were  identical  with,  those  of  all  who  followed 
in  his  day  his  profession  of  dramatist,  and  that  his 
conscious  aims  and  ambitions  and  practices  were 
those  of  every  contemporary  man  of  letters.  The 
difference  between  the  results  of  his  endeavours  and 
those  of  his  fellows  was  due  to  the  magic  and  in- 


58         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

volimtar}''  working  of  genius,  which,  since  the  birth 
of  poetr^^,  has  exercised  ''as  large  a  charter  as  the 
wind,  to  blow  on  whom  it  pleases."  Speculation 
or  debate  as  to  why  genius  bestowed  its  fullest  in- 
spiration on  Shakespeare  is  no  less  futile  than 
speculation  or  debate  as  to  why  he  was  born  into 
the  world  with  a  head  on  his  shoulders  instead  of  a 
block  of  stone.  It  is  enough  for  wise  men  to  know 
the  obvious  fact  that  genius  endowed  Shakespeare 
with  its  richest  gifts,  and  a  very  small  acquaintance 
with  the  literary  history"  of  the  world  and  with  the 
manner,  in  which  genius  habituall}''  plays  its  part 
there,  will  show  the  folty  of  cherishing  astonish- 
ment that  Shakespeare,  rather  than  one  more  nobly 
bom  or  more  academically  trained,  should  have 
been  chosen  for  the  glorious  dignity.  Nowhere  is 
this  lesson  more  convincingly  taught  than  by  a  syste- 
matic survey  of  the  oral  tradition.  Shakespeare 
figures  there  as  a  supremely  favoured  heir  of  genius, 
whose  humihty  of  birth  and  education  merely  serves 
to  intensify  the  respect  due  to  his  achievement. 

In  London,  where  Shakespeare's  work  was  mainly 
done  and  his  fortune  and  reputation  achieved,  he 
lived  with  none  in  more  intimate  social  relations 
than  with  the  leading  members  of  his  own  prosper- 
ous company  of  actors,  which,  under  the  patronage 
of  the  king,  produced  his  greatest  plays.  Like  him- 
self, most  of  his  colleagues  were  m.en  of  substance, 
sharers  with  him  in  the  two  most  fashionable  theatres 
of  the  metropolis,  occupiers  of  residences  in  both 
town  and  country,  owners  of  houses  and  lands,  and 
bearers  of  coat-armour  of  that  questionable  vahdity 
which  commonly  attaches  to  the  heraldry  of  the 
nouveaux  riches.     Two  of  these  affluent  associates 


THE  ACTORS'  TRADITION  59 

predeceased  Shakespeare;  and  one  of  them,  Augus- 
tine Phillips,  attested  his  friendship  in  a  small 
legacy.  Three  of  Shakespeare's  fellow-actors  were 
affectionately  remembered  by  him  in  his  will,  and 
a  fourth,  one  of  the  youngest  members  of  the  com- 
pany, proved  his  regard  for  Shakespeare's  mem- 
ory by  taking,  a  generation  after  the  dramatist's 
death,  Charles  Hart,  Shakespeare's  grand-nephew, 
into  his  employ  as  a  ''boy"  or  apprentice.  Grand- 
nephew  Charles  went  forth  on  a  prosperous  career, 
in  which  at  its  height  he  was  seriously  hkened  to 
his  grand-uncle's  most  distinguished  actor-ally, 
Richard  Burbage.  Above  all  is  it  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  to  the  disinterested  admiration  for  his 
genius  of  two  fellow-members  of  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany we  owe  the  preser^^ation  and  publication  of 
the  greater  part  of  his  literarj^  work.  The  personal 
fascination  of  ''so  worthy  a  friend  and  fellow  as 
was  our  Shakespeare"  bred  in  all  his  fellow-workers 
an  affectionate  pride  in  their  intimacy. 

Such  men  were  the  parents  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  surviving  oral  tradition  of  Shakespeare,  and  no 
better  parentage  could  be  wished  for.  To  the  first 
accessible  traditions  of  proved  oral  currency  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  the  two  fellow-actors  who 
called  the  great  First  Foho  into  existence  pledged 
their  credit  in  writing  only  seven  years  after  his 
death.  They  printed  in  the  prehminary  pages  of 
that  volume  these  three  statements  of  common 
fame,  a^z.,  that  to  Shakespeare  and  his  plays  in  his 
hfetime  was  invariably  extended  the  fullest  favour 
of  the  court  and  its  leading  officers;  that  death  de- 
prived him  of  the  opportunit}"  he  had  long  con- 
templated  of  preparing  his  Uterary  work  for  the 


60         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

press;  and  that  he  wrote  with  so  rapidly  flowing  a 
pen  that  his  manuscript  was  never  defaced  by  alter- 
ation or  erasure.  Shakespeare's  extraordinary^  rapid- 
ity of  composition  was  an  especially  frequent  topic 
of  contemporary  debate.  Ben  Jonson,  the  most 
intimate  personal  friend  of  Shakespeare  outside  the 
circle  of  working  actors,  wrote  how  ''the  players" 
would  ''often  mention"  to  him  the  poet's  fluency, 
and  how  he  was  in  the  habit  of  arguing  that  Shake- 
speare's work  would  have  been  the  better  had  he 
devoted  more  time  to  its  correction.  The  players, 
Ben  Jonson  adds,  were  wont  to  grumble  that  such 
a  remark  was  "malevolent,"  and  he  delighted  in 
seeking  to  vindicate  it  to  them  on  what  seemed  to 
him  to  be  just  critical  grounds. 

The  copious  deliverances  of  Jonson  in  the  tavern- 
parliaments  of  the  London  wits,  which  were  in  almost 
continuous  session  during  the  first  four  decades  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  set  flowing  much  other 
oral  tradition  of  Shakespeare,  whom  Jonson  said  he 
loved  and  whose  memory  he  honoured  "on  this  side 
idolatry  as  much  as  any."  One  of  Jonson 's  remarks 
which  seems  to  have  lived  longest  on  the  hps  of 
contemporaries  was  that  Shakespeare  "was  indeed 
honest  and  [like  his  own  Othello]  of  an  open  and 
free  nature,^  had  an  excellent  phantasy,  brave  no- 
tions and  gentle  expressions,  wherein  he  flowed 
with  that  facility  that  sometimes  it  was  necessary 
he  should  be  stopped." 

To  the  same  category  of  oral  tradition  belongs 
the  further  piece  which  Fuller  enshrined  in  his 
slender    biography    with    regard    to    Shakespeare's 

^  lago  says  of  Othello^  in  Othello,  I.,  iii.,  405 :  "  The  Moor  is 
of  a  free  and  open  nature." 


SHAKESPEARE'S  ALERTNESS  IN  DEBATE       61 

alert  skirmishes  with  Ben  Jonson  in  dialectical 
battle.  Jonson's  dialectical  skill  was  for  a  long 
period  undisputed,  and  for  gossip  to  credit  Shake- 
speare with  victory  in  such  conflict  was  to  pay  his 
memory  even  more  enviable  honour  than  Jonson 
paid  it  in  his  own  obiter  dicta. 

There  is  yet  an  additional  scrap  of  oral  tradition 
which,  reduced  to  writing  about  the  time  that 
Fuller  was  at  work,  confirms  Shakespeare's  reputa- 
tion for  quickness  of  wit  in  everyday  Hfe,  especially 
in  intercourse  with  the  critical  giant  Jonson.  Dr. 
Donne,  the  Jacobean  poet  and  dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
told,  apparently  on  Jonson's  authority,  the  story 
that  Shakespeare,  having  consented  to  act  as  god- 
father to  one  of  Jonson's  sons,  solemnly  promised 
to  give  the  child  a  dozen  good  "Latin  spoons"  for 
the  father  to  'translate."  Latin  was  a  play  upon 
the  word  ''latten,"  which  was  the  name  of  a  metal 
resembling  brass.  The  simple  quip  was  a  good- 
humoured  hit  at  Jonson's  pride  in  his  classical  learn- 
ing. Dr.  Donne  related  the  anecdote  to  Sir  Nicholas 
L'Estrange,  a  country  gentleman  of  literary  tastes, 
who  had  no  interest  in  Shakespeare  except  from 
the  literary  point  of  view.  He  entered  it  in  his 
commonplace  book  within  thirty  years  of  Shake- 
speare's death. 

IV 

Of  the  twenty-five  actors  who  are  enumerated  in 
a  preUminary  page  of  the  great  First  Folio,  as  filling 
in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  chief  roles  in  his  plays,  few 
survived  him  long.  All  of  them  came  in  personal 
contact  with  him;  several  of  them  constantly  ap- 
peared with  him  on  the  stage  from  early  days. 

The  two  who  were  longest  lived,  John  Lowin  and 


62         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

Joseph  Taylor,  came  at  length  to  bear  a  great  weight 
of  years.  They  were  both  Shakespeare's  juniors, 
Lowin  by  twelve  years,  and  Taylor  by  twenty,  but 
both  established  their  reputation  before  middle  age. 
Lowin  at  twenty-seven  took  part  with  Shakespeare 
in  the  first  representation  of  Ben  Jonson's  Sejanus 
in  1603.  He  was  an  early,  if  not  the  first,  inter- 
preter of  the  character  of  Falstaff.  Taylor  as 
understudy  to  the  great  actor  Burbage,  a  very  close 
ally  of  Shakespeare,  seems  to  have  achieved  some 
success  in  the  part  of  Hamlet,  and  to  have  been 
applauded  in  the  role  of  lago,  while  the  dramatist 
yet  lived.  When  the  dramatist  died,  Lowin  w^as 
forty,  and  Taylor  over  thirty. 

Subsequently,  as  their  senior  colleagues  one  by 
one  passed  from  the  world,  these  two  actors  as- 
sumed first  rank  in  their  company,  and  before  the 
ruin  in  which  the  Civil  War  involved  all  theatrical 
enterprise,  they  were  acknowledged  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  their  profession. ^  Taylor  lived  through  the 
Commonwealth,  and  Lowin  far  into  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  ultimately  reaching  his  ninety- 
third  year.  Their  last  days  were  passed  in  indigence, 
and  Lowin  when  an  octogenarian  was  reduced  to  keep- 
ing the  inn  of  the  '^ Three  Pigeons,"  at  Brentford. 

Both  these  men  kept  alive  from  personal  know- 
ledge some  oral  Shakespearean  tradition  during  the 

^  Like  almost  all  their  colleagues,  they  had  much  literary  taste. 
When  public  events  compulsorily  retired  them  from  the  stage, 
they,  with  the  aid  of  the  dramatist  Shirley  and  eight  other  actors, 
two  of  whom  were  members  with  them  of  Shakespeare's  old  com- 
pany, did  an  important  service  to  English  literature.  In  1647 
they  collected  for  first  publication  in  folio  Beaumont  and  Fletch- 
er's plays;  only  one,  The  Wild  Goose  Chase,  was  omitted,  and 
that  piece  Taylor  and  Lowin  brought  out  by  their  unaided  efforts 
five  years  later. 


TESTIMONIES  OF  TAYLOR  AND  LOWIN        63 

fifty  years  and  more  that  followed  his  death.  Little 
of  their  gossip  is  extant.  But  some  of  it  was  put 
on  record,  before  the  end  of  the  centun^,  by  John 
Downes,  the  old  prompter  and  librarian  of  a  chief 
London  theatre..  According  to  Downes's  testimony, 
Taylor  repeated  instructions  which  he  had  re- 
ceived from  Shakespeare's  own  lips  for  the  playing 
of  the  part  of  Hamlet,  while  Lowin  narrated  how 
Shakespeare  taught  him  the  theatrical  interpreta- 
tion of  the  character  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  in  that 
play  of  the  name  which  came  from  the  joint  pens 
of  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher. 

Both  Taylor's  and  Lowin' s  reminiscences  were 
passed  on  to  Thomas  Betterton,  the  greatest  actor 
of  the  Restoration,  and  the  most  influential  figure 
in  the  theatrical  life  of  his  day.  Through  him  they 
were  permanently  incorporated  in  the  verbal  stage- 
lore  of  the  count r}\  No  doubt  is  possible  of  the 
validity  of  this  piece  of  oral  tradition,  which  re- 
veals Shakespeare  in  the  act  of  personally  supervis- 
ing the  production  of  his  own  plays,  and  springs 
from  the  mouths  of  those  who  personally  benefited 
by  the  dramatist's  activity. 

Taylor  and  Lowin  were  probably  the  last  actors 
to  speak  of  Shakespeare  from  personal  knowledge. 
But  hardly  less  deserving  of  attention  are  scraps  of 
gossip  about  Shakespeare  which  survive  in  writing, 
on  the  authority  of  some  of  Taylor's  and  Lowin 's 
actor-contemporaries.  These  men  were  never  them- 
selves in  personal  relations  with  Shakespeare,  but 
knew  many  formerly  in  direct  relation  with  him. 
Probably  the  seventeenth  century  actor  wdth  the 
most  richly  stored  memory'  of  the  oral  Shake- 
spearean tradition  was  William  Beeston,  to  whose 


64         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

house  in  Hog  Lane,  Shoreditch,  the  curious  often 
resorted  in  Charles  the  Second's  time  to  Hsten  to 
his  reminiscences  of  Shakespeare  and  of  the  poets 
of  Shakespeare's  epoch. 

Beeston  died  after  a  busy  theatrical  life,  at  eighty 
or  upwards,  in  1682.  He  belonged  to  a  family  of 
distinguished  actors  or  actor-managers.  His  father, 
brothers,  and  son  were  all,  hke-  himself,  prominent 
in  the  profession,  and  some  of  them  were  almost 
as  long-Uved  as  himself.  His  own  career  combined 
with  that  of  his  father  covered  more  than  a  century, 
and  both  sedulously  and  with  pride  cultivated  in- 
timacy with  contemporary  dramatic  authors. 

It  was  probably  Wilham  Beeston's  grandfather, 
also  William  Beeston,  to  whom  the  satirical  EHza- 
bethan,  Thomas  Nash,  dedicated  in  1593,  with  good- 
humoured  irony,  one  of  his  insolent  libels  on  Gabriel 
Harvey,  a  scholar  who  had  defamed  the  memory 
of  a  dead  friend.  Nash  laughed  at  his  patron's 
struggles  with  syntax  in  his  efforts  to  write  poetry, 
and  at  his  indulgence  in  drink,  which  betrayed  itself 
in  his  red  nose.  But,  in  spite  of  Nash's  character- 
istic frankness,  he  greeted  the  first  WilHam  Beeston 
as  a  boon  companion  who  was  generous  in  his 
entertainment  of  threadbare  scholars.  Christopher 
Beeston,  this  man's  son,  the  father  of  the  Shake- 
spearean gossip,  had  in  abundance  the  hereditary 
taste  for  letters.  He  was  at  one  time  Shakespeare's 
associate  on  the  stage.  Both  took  part  together 
in  the  first  representation  of  Ben  Jonson's  Every 
Man  in  His  Humour,  in  1598.  His  name  was  again 
linked  v/ith  Shakespeare's  in  the  will  of  their  fellow- 
actor,  Augustine  Phillips,  who  left  each  of  them  a  leg- 
acy as  a  token  of  friendship  at  his  death  in  1605. 
Christopher  Beeston  left  Shakespeare's  company  of 


WILLIAM  BEESTON  AND  HIS  FAMILY        65 

actors  for  another  theatre  early  in  his  career,  and  his 
closest  friend  among  the  actor-authors  of  his  day  in 
later  life  was  not  Shakespeare  himself  but  Thomas 
Heywood,  the  popular  dramatist  and  pamphleteer, 
who  lived  on  to  1650.  This  was  a  friendship  which 
kept  Beeston's  respect  for  Shakespeare  at  a  fitting 
pitch.     Heywood,  who  wrote  the  affectionate  lines : 

Mellifluous  Shakespeare,  whose  inchanting  Quill 
Commanded  Mirth  or  Passion,  was  but  Will, 

enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  published  in  Shake- 
speare's lifetime  the  only  expression  of  resentment 
that  is  known  to  have  come  from  the  dramatist's 
proverbially  '' gentle  lips."  Shakespeare  (Heywood 
wrote)  ''was  much  offended"  with  an  unprincipled 
publisher  who  ''presumed  to  make  so  bold  with  his 
name"  as  to  put  it  to  a  book  of  which  he  was  not 
the  author.  And  Beeston  had  direct  concern  with 
the  volume  called  An  Apology  for  Actors,  to  which 
Heywood  appended  his  report  of  these  words  of 
Shakespeare.  To  the  book  the  actor  Beeston  con- 
tributed preliminary  verses  addressed  to  the  author, 
his  "good  friend  and  fellow,  Thomas  Heywood." 
There  Beeston  briefly  ^dndicated  the  recreation 
which  the  playhouse  offered  the  public.  Much 
else  in  Christopher  Beeston's  professional  career  is 
known,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  mention  here  that  he 
died  in  1637,  while  he  was  filling  the  post  that  he 
had  long  held,  of  manager  to  the  King  and  Queen's 
Company  of  Players  at  Cock-pit  Theatre  in  Drury 
Lane.  It  was  the  chief  playhouse  of  the  time,  and 
his  wife  was  lessee  of  it. 

Christopher's  son,  William  Beeston  the  second, 
was  his  father's  coadjutor  at  Drury  Lane,  and 
succeeded  him  in  his  high  managerial  office  there. 
The  son  encountered  difficulties  with  the  Govern- 


66         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

ment  through  an  alleged  insult  to  the  King  in  one 
of  the  pieces  that  he  produced,  and  he  had  to  retire 
from  the  Cock-pit  to  a  smaller  theatre  in  Salisbury 
Court.  Until  his  death  he  retained  the  respect  of 
the  play-going  and  the  literature-loving  pubHc,  and 
his  son  George,  whom  he  brought  up  to  the  stage, 
carried  on  the  family  repute  to  a  later  generation. 
WilUam  Beeston  had  no  liking  for  dissolute 
society,  and  the  open  vice  of  Charles  the  Second's 
Court  pained  him.  He  lived  in  old  age  much  in 
seclusion,  but  by  a  congenial  circle  he  was  always 
warmly  welcomed  for  the  freshness  and  enthusiasm 
of  his  talk  about  the  poets  who  flourished  in  his 
youth.  ''Divers  times  (in  my  hearing),"  one  of  his 
auditors,  Francis  Kirkman,  an  ardent  collector, 
reader,  and  pubUsher  of  old  plays,  wrote  to  him  in 
1652 — ''Divers  times  (in  my  hearing),  to  the  ad- 
miration of  the  whole  company  you  have  most 
judiciously  discoursed  of  Poesie."  In  the  judg- 
ment of  Kirkman,  his  friend,  the  old  actor,  was 
"the  happiest  interpreter  and  judg  of  our  English 
stage-Playes  this  Nation  ever  produced;  which  the 
Poets  and  Actors  these  times  cannot  (without  in- 
gratitude) deny;  for  I  have  heard  the  chief,  and 
most  ingenious  of  them,  acknowledg  their  Fames 
and  Profits  essentially  sprung  from  your  instruc- 
tions, judgment,  and  fancy."  Few  who  heard 
Beeston  talk  failed,  Kirkman  continues,  to  sub- 
scribe "to  his  opinion  that  no  Nation  could  glory 
in  such  Playes"  as  those  that  came  from  the  pens 
of  the  great  Ehzabethans,  Shakespeare,  Fletcher, 
and  Ben  Jonson.  "Glorious  John  Dry  den"  shared 
in  the  general  enthusiasm  for  the  veteran  Beeston, 
and  bestowed  on  him  the  title  of  "the  chronicle  of 


AUBREY  ON  BEESTON'S  GOSSIP  67 

the  stage" ;  while  John  Aubrey,  the  honest  antiquary 
and  gossip,  who  had  in  his  disorderly  brain  the 
makings  of  a  Boswell,  sought  Beeston's  personal 
acquaintance  about  1660,  in  order  to  'Hake  from 
him  the  lives  of  the  old  EngHsh  Poets." 

It  is  Aubrey  who  has  recorded  most  of  such 
sparse  fragments  of  Beeston's  talk  as  survive — how 
Edmund  '^  Spenser  was  a  little  man,  wore  short  hair, 
Httle  bands,  and  short  cuffs,"  and  how  Sir  John 
Suckling  came  to  invent  the  game  of  cribbage. 
Naturally,  of  Shakespeare  Beeston  has  much  to  re- 
late. In  the  shrewd  old  gossip's  language,  he  ''did 
act  exceedingly  well,"  far  better  than  Jonson;  "he 
understood  Latin  pretty  well,  for  he  had  been  in  his 
younger  years  a  schoolmaster  in  the  country";  "he 
was  a  handsome,  well-shaped  man,  very  good  com- 
pany, and  of  a  very  ready  and  pleasant  smooth 
wit";  he  and  Ben  Jonson  gathered  "humours  of 
men  daily  wherever  they  came."  The  ample  testi- 
mony to  the  excellent  influence  which  Beeston  ex- 
ercised over  "the  poets  and  actors  of  these  times" 
leaves  little  doubt  that  Sir  William  D'Avenant, 
Beeston's  successor  as  manager  at  Drury  Lane, 
and  Thomas  Shadwell,  the  fashionable  writer  of 
comedies,  largely  echoed  their  old  mentor's  words 
when,  in  conversation  with  Aubrey,  they  credited 
Shakespeare  with  "a  most  prodigious  wit,"  and 
declared  that  they  "did  admire  his  natural  parts 
beyond  all  other  dramatical  writers."  ^ 

John  Lacy,  another  actor  of  Beeston's  genera- 
tion, who  made  an  immense  reputation  on  the  stage 

^  Aubrey's  Lives,  being  reports  of  his  miscellaneous  gossip, 
were  first  fully  printed  from  his  manuscripts  in  the  Bodleian 
Library  by  the  Clarendon  Press  in  1898.  They  were  most  care- 
fully edited  by  the  Rev.  Andrew  Clark. 


68         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

and  was  also  a  successful  writer  of  farces,  was  one 
of  Beeston's  closest  friends,  and,  having  been  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  Ben  Jonson,  could  lend 
to  many  of  Beeston's  stories  useful  corroborative 
testimony.  With  Lacy,  too,  the  gossip  Aubrey  con- 
versed of  Shakespeare's  career. 

At  the  same  time,  the  popularity  of  Shake- 
speare's grand-nephew,  Charles  Hart,  who  was 
called  the  Burbage  of  his  day,  whetted  among 
actors  the  appetite  for  Shakespearean  tradition, 
especially  of  the  theatrical  kind.  Hart  had  no 
direct  acquaintance  with  his  great  kinsman,  who 
died  fully  ten  years  before  he  was  born,  while  his 
father,  who  was  sixteen  at  Shakespeare's  death, 
died  in  his  son's  boyhood.  But  Hart's  grand- 
mother, the  poet's  sister,  lived  till  he  was  twenty- 
one,  and  Richard  Robinson,  the  fellow-member  of 
Shakespeare's  company  who  first  taught  Hart  to 
act,  survived  his  pupil's  adolescence.  That  Hart 
did  what  he  could  to  satisfy  the  curiosity  of  his 
companions  there  is  a  precise  oral  tradition  to  con- 
firm. According  to  the  story,  first  put  on  record 
in  the  eighteenth  century  by  the  painstaking  anti- 
quary, William  Oldys,  it  was  through  Hart  that 
some  actors  made,  near  the  date  of  the  Restora- 
tion, the  exciting  discovery  that  Gilbert,  one  of 
Shakespeare's  brothers,  who  was  the  dramatist's 
junior  by  only  two  years,  was  still  living  at  a  patri- 
archal age.  Oldys  describes  the  concern  with  which 
Hart's  professional  acquaintances  questioned  the 
old  man  about  his  brother,  and  their  disappoint- 
ment when  his  failing  memory  only  enabled  him  to 
recall  William's  performance  of  the  part  of  Adam 
in  his  comedy  of  As  You  Like  It. 


D'AVENANT  AND  SHAKESPEARE  69 

It  should  be  added  that  Oldys  obtained  his 
information  of  the  episode,  which  deserves  more 
attention  than  it  has  received,  from  an  actor  of  a 
comparatively  recent  generation,  John  Bowman, 
who  died  over  eighty  in  1739,  after  spending  ''more 
than  half  an  age  on  the  London  theatres." 

V 

Valuable  as  these  actors'  testimonies  are,  it  is  in 
another  rank  of  the  profession  that  we  find  the  most 
important  link  in  the  chain  of  witnesses  alike  to  the 
persistence  and  authenticity  of  the  oral  tradition  of 
Shakespeare  which  was  current  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Sir  William  D'Avenant,  the 
chief  playwright  and  promoter  of  theatrical  enter- 
prise of  his  day,  enjoyed  among  persons  of  influence 
and  quality  infinite  credit  and  confidence.  As  a  boy 
he  and  his  brothers  had  come  into  personal  rela- 
tions with  the  dramatist  under  their  father's  roof, 
and  the  experience  remained  the  proudest  boast  of 
their  lives.  D'Avenant  was  little  more  than  ten 
when  Shakespeare  died,  and  his  direct  intercourse 
with  him  was  consequently  slender;  but  D'Avenant 
was  a  child  of  the  Muses,  and  his  slight  acquaintance 
with  the  living  Shakespeare  spurred  him  to  treasure 
all  that  he  could  learn  of  his  hero  from  any  who 
had  enjoyed  fuller  opportunities  of  intimacy. 

To  learn  the  manner  in  which  the  child 
D'Avenant  and  his  brothers  came  to  know  Shake- 
speare is  to  approach  the  dramatist  through  oral 
tradition  at  very  close  quarters.  D'Avenant's  fa- 
ther, a  melancholy  person  who  was  never  known 
to  laugh,  long  kept  at  Oxford  the  Crown  Inn  in  Car- 
fax.    Gossip  which  was  current  in  Oxford  through- 


70         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

out  the  seventeenth  century,  and  was  put  on  record 
before  the  end  of  it  by  more  than  one  scholar  of  the 
university,  estabUshes  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  on 
his  annual  journeys  between  London  and  Stratford- 
on-Avon  was  in  the  habit  of  staging  at  the  elder 
D'Avenant's  Oxford  hostel^}^  The  report  ran  that 
''he  was  exceedingh^  respected"  in  the  house,  and 
was  freely  admitted  to  the  inn-keeper's  domestic 
circle.  The  inn-keeper's  wife  was  credited  with  a 
mercurial  disposition  which  contrasted  strangely 
with  her  husband's  sardonic  temperament;  it  was 
often  said  in  Oxford  that  Shakespeare  not  merely 
found  his  chief  attraction  at  the  Crown  Inn  in  the 
wife's  witty  conversation,  but  formed  a  closer  inti- 
macy with  her  than  moralists  would  approve.  Oral 
tradition  speaks  in  clearer  tones  of  his  deUght  in 
the  children  of  the  family — four  boys  and  three 
girls.  We  have  at  command  statements  on  that 
subject  from  the  lips  of  two  of  the  sons.  The  eldest 
son,  Robert,  who  was  afterwards  a  parson  in  Wilt- 
shire, and  was  on  familiar  terms  with  many  men  of 
culture,  often  recalled  with  pride  for  their  benefit  that 
"Mr  William  Shakespeare"  had  given  him  as  a  child 
''a  hundred  kisses"  in  his  father's  tavern-parlour. 

The  third  son,  William,  was  more  expansive  in 
his  reminiscences.  It  was  generally  understood  at 
Oxford  in  the  early  years  of  ^he  seventeenth  century" 
that  he  was  the  poet's  godson,  as  his  Christian 
name  would  allow,  but  some  gossips  had  it  that  the 
poet's  paternity  was  of  a  less  spiritual  character. 
According  to  a  genuine  anecdote  of  contemporary 
origin,  when  the  boy,  William  D'Avenant,  in 
Shakespeare's  lifetime,  informed  a  doctor  of  the 
university  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  ask  a  blessing 


D'AVENANT'S  INFLUENCE  71 

of  his  godfather  who  had  just  arrived  in  the  town, 
the  child  was  warned  by  his  interlocutor  against 
taking  the  name  of  God  in  vain.  It  is  proof  of  the 
estimation  in  which  D'Avenant  held  Shakespeare 
that  when  he  came  to  man's  estate  he  was  ''content 
enough  to  have"  the  insinuation  ''thought  to  be 
true."  He  would  talk  freely  with  his  friends  over 
a  glass  of  wine  of  Shakespeare's  visits  to  his  father's 
house,  and  would  say  "that  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  wrote  with  Shakespeare's  very  spirit."  Of  his 
reverence  for  Shakespeare  he  gave  less  questionable 
proof  in  a  youthful  elegy  in  which  he  represented 
the  flowers  and  trees  on  the  banks  of  the  Avon 
mourning  for  Shakespeare's  death  and  the  river 
weeping  itself  away.  He  was  credited,  too,  with 
having  adopted  the  new  spelling  of  his  name 
D'^l tenant  (for  Davenant),  so  as  to  read  into  it  a 
reference  to  the  river  Avon. 

In  maturer  age  D'Avenant  sought  out  the  old 
actors  Taylor  and  Lowin,  and  mastered  their  in- 
formation respecting  Shakespeare,  their  early  col- 
league on  the  stage.  With  a  curious  perversity  he 
mainly  devoted  his  undoubted  genius  in  his  later 
years  to  rewriting  in  accordance  with  the  debased 
taste  of  Charles  the  Second's  reign  the  chief  works 
of  his  idol;  but  until  D'Avenant's  death  in  1668 
the  unique  character  of  Shakespeare's  greatness  had 
no  stouter  champion  than  he,  and  in  the  circle  of 
men  of  wit  and  fashion,  of  which  he  was  the  centre, 
none  kept  the  cult  alive  with  greater  enthusiasm. 
His  early  friend  Sir  John  Suckling,  the  Cavaher 
poet,  who  was  only  seven  years  old  when  Shake- 
speare died,  he  infected  so  thoroughly  with  his  own 
affectionate  admiration  that  Suckling  wrote  of  the 


72         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

dramatist  in  familiar  letters  as  ''my  friend  Mr 
William  Shakespeare,"  and  had  his  portrait  painted 
by  Vandyck  with  an  open  volume  of  Shakespeare's 
works  in  his  hand.  Even  more  important  is  Dr}-- 
den's  testimony  that  he  was  himself  "first  taught" 
by  D'Avenant  "to  admire"  Shakespeare. 

One  of  the  most  precise  and  valuable  pieces  of 
oral  tradition  which  directly  owed  currency  to 
D'Avenant  was  the  detailed  story  of  the  generous 
gift  of  £1000,  which  Shakespeare's  patron,  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  made  the  poet  "to  enable  him  to 
go  through  with  a  purchase  which  he  heard  he  had 
a  mind  to."  Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  biographer, 
recorded  this  particular  on  the  specific  authority  of 
D'Avenant,  who,  he  pointed  out,  "was  probably  very 
well  acquainted  with  the  dramatist's  affairs."  At 
the  same  time  it  was  often  repeated  that  D'Avenant 
was  owner  of  a  complimentary  letter  which  James 
the  First  had  written  to  Shakespeare  with  his  own 
hand.  A  Hterary  politician,  John  Sheffield,  Earl  of 
Mulgrave  and  Duke  of  Buckinghamshire,  who  sur- 
vived D'Avenant  nearly  half  a  century,  said  that  he 
had  examined  the  epistle  while  it  was  in  D'Avenant 's 
keeping.  The  publisher  Lintot  first  printed  the 
Duke's  statement  in  the  preface  to  a  new  edition  of 
Shakespeare's  Poems  in  1709. 

D'Avenant's  devotion  did  much  for  Shake- 
speare's memor^^;  but  it  stimulated  others  to  do 
even  more  for  the  after-generations  who  wished  to 
know  the  whole  truth  about  Shakespeare's  Hfe. 
The  great  actor  of  the  Restoration,  Thomas  Better- 
ton,  was  D'Avenant's  close  associate  in  his  last 
years.  D'Avenant  coached  him  in  the  parts  both 
of  Hamlet  and  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  in  the  fight  of 


BETTERTON  AT  STRATFORD-ON-AVON   73 

the  instruction  which  he  had  derived  through  the 
mecUum  of  Taylor  and  Lowin  from  Shakespeare's 
own  Hps.  But  more  to  the  immediate  purpose  is 
it  to  note  that  D'Avenant's  ardour  as  a  seeker  after 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare  fired  Betterton  into 
making  a  pilgrimage  to  Stratford-on-Avon  to  glean 
oral  traditions  of  the  dramatist's  life  there.  Many 
other  of  Shakespeare's  admirers  had  previously 
made  Stratford  Church,  where  stood  his  tomb,  a 
place  of  pilgrimage,  and  Aubrey  had  acknowledged 
in  haphazard  fashion  the  value  of  Stratford  gossip. 
But  it  was  Betterton's  visit  that  laid  the  train  for 
the  systematic  union  of  the  oral  traditions  of  Lon- 
don and  Stratford  respectively. 

It  was  not  until  the  London  and  Warwickshire 
streams  of  tradition  mingled  in  equal  strength  that 
a  regular  biography  of  Shakespeare  was  possible. 
Betterton  was  the  efficient  cause  of  this  conjunction. 
All  that  Stratford-on-Avon  revealed  to  him  he  put 
at  the  disposal  of  Nicholas  Rowe,  who  was  the  first 
to  attempt  a  formal  memoir.  Of  Betterton's  as- 
sistance Rowe  made  generous  acknowledgment  in 
these  terms: — 

I  must  own  a  particular  Obligation  to  him  [i.e., 
Betterton]  for  the  most  considerable  part  of  the 
Passages  relating  to  his  [i.e.,  Shakespeare's]  Life, 
which  I  have  here  transmitted  to  the  Publick;  his 
veneration  for  the  Memory  of  Shakespear  having 
engag'd  him  to  make  a  Journey  into  Warwickshire, 
on  purpose  to  gather  up  what  Remains  he  could  of 
a  Name  for  which  he  had  so  great  a  Value. 

VI 

The  contemporary  epitaph  on  Shakespeare's 
tomb  in  Stratford-on-Avon  Church,  which  acclaimed 


74         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

Shakespeare  a  writer  of  supreme  genius,  gave  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Httle  town  no  opportunity  of 
ignoring  at  any  period  the  fact  that  the  greatest 
poet  of  his  era  had  been  their  fellow-townsman. 
Stratford  was  indeed  openly  identified  with  Shake- 
speare's career  from  the  earliest  possible  day,  and 
Sir  William  Dugdale,  the  first  topographer  of  War- 
wickshire, writing  about  1650,  noted  that  the  place 
was  memorable  for  having  given  '^^irth  and  sepul- 
ture to  our  late  famous  poet  Will  Shakespeare."  But 
the  obscure  little  town  produced  in  the  years  that 
followed  Shakespeare's  death  none  who  left  behind 
records  of  their  experience,  and  such  fragments  of  oral 
tradition  of  Shakespeare  at  Stratford  as  are  extant 
survive  accidentally,  with  one  notable  exception,  in  the 
manuscript  notes  of  visitors,  who,  like  Betterton,  were 
drawn  thither  by  a  veneration  acquired  elsewhere. 

The  one  notable  exception  is  John  Ward,  a 
seventeenth-century  vicar  of  Stratford,  who  settled 
there  in  1662,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  forty-six 
years  after  Shakespeare's  death.  Ward  remained 
at  Stratford  till  his  death  in  1681.  He  is  the  only 
resident  of  the  century  who  wrote  down  any  of  the 
local  story.  Ward  was  a  man  of  good  sentiment. 
He  judged  that  it  became  a  vicar  of  Stratford  to 
know  his  Shakespeare  well,  and  one  of  his  private 
reminders  for  his  own  conduct  runs — ^'Remember  to 
peruse  Shakespeare's  plays,  and  bee  much  versed  in 
them,  that  I  may  not  bee  ignorant  in  that  matter." 

Ward  was  a  voluminous  diarist  and  a  faithful 
chronicler  as  far  as  he  cared  to  go.  Shakespeare's 
last  surviving  daughter,  Judith  Quiney,  was  dying 
when  he  arrived  in  Stratford;  but  sons  of  Shake- 
speare's sister,  Mistress  Joan  Hart,  were  still  living 


STRATFORD-ON-AVON  GOSSIP  75 

in  the  poet's  birthplace  in  Henley  Street.  Ward 
seems,  too,  to  have  known  Lady  Barnard,  Shake- 
speare's only  grandchild  and  last  surviving  descend- 
ant, who,  although  she  only  occasionally  visited 
Stratford  after  her  second  marriage  in  1649,  and 
her  removal  to  her  husband's  residence  at  Abington, 
near  the  town  of  Northampton,  retained  much  prop- 
erty in  her  native  place  till  her  death  in  1670. 
Ward  reported  from  local  conversation  six  im- 
portant details,  viz.,  that  Shakespeare  retired  to 
Stratford  in  his  elder  days;  that  he  wrote  at  the 
most  active  period  of  his  life  two  plays  a  year;  that 
he  made  so  large  an  income  from  his  dramas  that 
'^  he  spent  at  the  rate  of  £1000  a  year  ";  that  he 
entertained  his  Hterary  friends  Drayton  and  Jonson 
at  ''a  merry  meeting"  shortly  before  his  death,  and 
that  he  died  of  its  effects. 

Oxford,  which  was  only  thirty-six  miles  distant, 
supplied  the  majority  of  Stratford  tourists,  who, 
before  Betterton,  gathered  oral  tradition  there. 
Aubrey,  the  Oxford  gossip,  roughly  noted  six  local 
items  other  than  those  which  are  embodied  in 
Ward's  diary,  or  are  to  be  gleaned  from  Beeston's 
reminiscences,  viz.,  that  Shakespeare  had  as  a  lad 
helped  his  father  in  his  trade  of  butcher ;  that  one  of 
the  poet's  companions  in  boyhood,  who  died  young, 
had  almost  as  extraordinary  a  '^ natural  wit";  that 
Shakespeare  betrayed  very  early  signs  of  poetic 
genius;  that  he  paid  annual  visits  to  his  native 
place  when  his  career  was  at  its  height;  that  he 
loved  at  tavern  meetings  in  the  town  to  chaff  John 
Combe,  the  richest  of  his  fellow-townsmen,  who 
was  accused  of  usurious  practices;  and  finally,  that 
he  died  possessed  of  a  substantial  fortune. 


76  SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

Until  the  end  of  the  century,  visitors  were  shown 
round  the  church  by  an  aged  parish  clerk,  some  of 
whose  gossip  about  Shakespeare  was  recorded  by 
one  of  them  in  1693.  The  old  man  came  thus  to 
supply  two  further  items  of  information :  how  Shake- 
speare ran  away  in  youth,  and  how  he  sought  ser- 
vice at  a  plajdiouse,  ''and  by  this  meanes  had  an 
opportunity  to  be  what  he  afterwards  proved."  A 
different  visitor  to  Stratford  next  year  recorded  in 
an  extant  letter  to  a  friend  yet  more  scraps  of  oral 
tradition.  These  were  to  the  effect  that  ''the  great 
Shakespear"  dreaded  the  removal  of  his  bones  to 
the  charnel-house  attached  to  the  church;  that  he 
caused  his  grave  to  be  dug  seventeen  feet  deep;  and 
that  he  wrote  the  rude  warning  against  disturbing  his 
bones,  which  was  inscribed  on  his  gravestone,  in  order 
to  meet  the  capacity  of  the  "very  ignorant  sort  of 
people"  whose  business  it  was  to  look  after  burials. 

Betterton  gained  more  precise  particulars — the 
date  of  baptism  and  the  like — from  an  examination 
of  the  parochial  records;  but  the  most  valuable 
piece  of  oral  tradition  with  which  the  great  actor's 
research  must  be  credited  was  the  account  of  Shake- 
speare's deer-stealing  escapade  at  Charlecote.  An- 
other tourist  from  Oxford  privately  and  independ- 
ently put  that  anecdote  into  writing  at  the  same 
date,  but  Rowe,  who  first  gave  it  to  the  world  in  his 
biography,  relied  exclusively  on  Betterton's  au- 
thority. At  a  little  later  period  inquiries  made  at 
Stratford  by  a  second  actor,  Bowman,  yielded  a 
trifle  more.  Bowman  came  to  know  a  very  reput- 
able resident  at  Bridgtown,  a  hamlet  adjoining 
Stratford,  Sir  William  Bishop,  whose  family  was 
of  old  standing:  there.     Sir  Wilham  was  born  ten 


THE  TRADITION  OF  GRENDON  77 

years  after  Shakespeare  died,  and  lived  close  to 
Stratford  till  1700.  He  told  Bo^Tnan  that  a  part 
of  Falstaff's  character  was  drawn  from  a  fellow- 
townsman  at  Stratford  against  whom  Shakespeare 
cherished  a  grudge  owing  to  his  obduracy  in  some 
business  transaction.  Bowman  repeated  the  story 
to  Oldys,  who  put  it  on  record. 

Although  one  could  wish  the  earty  oral  tradition 
of  Stratford  to  have  been  more  thoroughly  reported, 
such  as  is  extant  in  writing  is  sufficient  to  prove 
that  Shakespeare's  literary  eminence  was  well  known 
in  his  native  place  during  the  century  that  followed 
his  death.  In  many  villages  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Stratford — at  Bidford,  at  Wilmcote,  at  Greet,  at 
Dursley — there  long  persisted  like  oral  tradition  of 
Shakespeare's  occasional  visits,  but  these  were  not 
written  down  before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
centur}^;  and  although  they  are  of  service  as  proof 
of  the  local  dissemination  of  his  fame,  the}^  are  some- 
what less  definite  than  the  traditions  that  suffered 
earUer  record,  and  need  not  be  particularised  here. 
One  light  piece  of  gossip,  which  was  associated  with 
a  country  parish  at  some  distance  from  Stratford, 
can  alone  be  traced  back  to  remote  date,  and  was 
quickly  committed  to  writing.  A  trustworthy  Ox- 
ford don,  Josias  Howe,  fellow  and  tutor  of  Trinity, 
was  bom  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  at  Gren- 
don  in  Buckinghamshire,  where  his  father  was  long 
rector,  and  he  maintained  close  relations  ^dth 
his  birthplace  during  his  Hfe  of  more  than  ninety 
3'ears.  Grendon  was  on  the  road  between  Oxford 
and  London.  Howe  stated  that  Shakespeare  often 
visited  the  place  in  his  journey  from  Stratford,  and 
that  he  found  the  original  of  his  character  of  Dog- 


78  SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

berry  in  the  person  of  a  parish  constable  who  Hved 
on  there  till  1642.  Howe  was  on  familiar  terms 
with  the  man,  and  he  confided  his  reminiscence  to 
his  friend  Aubrey,  who  duly  recorded  it,  although 
in  a  somewhat  confused  shape. 

VII 

It  is  with  early  oral  tradition  of  Shakespeare's 
personal  experience  that  I  am  dealing  here.  It  is 
not  my  purpose  to  notice  early  literary  criticism,  of 
which  there  is  abundant  supply.  It  was  obviously 
the  free  circulation  of  the  fame  of  Shakespeare's 
work  which  stimulated  the  activity  of  interest  in  his 
private  fortunes  and  led  to  the  chronicling  of  the 
oral  tradition  regarding  them.  It  could  easily  be 
shown  that,  outside  the  circle  of  professional  poets, 
dramatists,  actors,  and  fellow-townsmen,  Shake- 
speare's name  was,  from  his  first  coming  into  pubHc 
notice,  constantly  on  the  lips  of  scholars,  states- 
men, and  men  of  fashion  who  had  any  gUmmer  of 
hterary  taste.  The  Muse  of  History  indeed  drops 
plain  hints  of  the  views  expressed  at  the  social  meet- 
ings of  the  great  in  the  seventeenth  century  when 
Shakespeare  was  under  discussion.  Before  1643, 
''all  persons  of  equality  that  had  wit  and  learning" 
engaged  in  a  set  debate  at  Eton  in  the  rooms  of 
''the  ever-memorable"  John  Hales,  FeUow  of  the 
College,  on  the  question  of  Shakespeare's  merits 
compared  with  those  of  classical  poets.  The  judges 
who  presided  over  "this  ingenious  assembly"  unan- 
imously and  without  qualification  decided  in  favour 
of  Shakespeare's  superiority. 

A  very  eminent  representative  of  the  culture 
and  political  intelligence  of  the  next  generation  was 


ROWE'S  BIOGRAPHY  OF  1709  79 

in  full  sympathy  with  the  verdict  of  the  Eton  College 
tribunal.  Lord  Clarendon  held  Shakespeare  to  be 
one  of  the  ''most  illustrious  of  our  nation."  Among 
the  many  heroes  of  his  admiration,  Shakespeare 
was  of  the  elect  few  who  were  ''most  agreeable  to 
his  lordship's  general  humour."  Lord  Clarendon 
was  at  the  pains  of  securing  a  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare to  hang  in  his  house  in  St.  James's.  Similar^, 
the  proudest  and  probably  the  richest  nobleman 
in  political  circles  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
centur}^,  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  was  often  heard  to 
speak  of  his  "pleasure  in  that  Greatness  of  Thought, 
those  natural  Images,  those  Passions  finely  touch'd, 
and  that  beautiful  Expression  which  is  everywhere 
to  be  met  with  in  Shakespear." 

VIII 

It  was  to  this  Duke  of  Somerset  that  Howe 
appropriately  dedicated  the  first  full  and  formal 
biography  of  the  poet.  That  work  was  designed 
as  a  preface  to  the  first  critical  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  which  Rowe  published  in  1709. 
"Though  the  works  of  Mr  Shakespear  may  seem 
to  many  not  to  want  a  comment,"  Rowe  wrote 
modestly  enough,  "yet  I  fancy  some  little  account 
of  the  man  himself  may  not  be  thought  improper 
to  go  along  with  them."  Rowe  did  his  work  quite 
as  well  as  the  rudimentary  state  of  the  biographic 
art  of  his  day  allowed.  He  was  under  the  com- 
placent impression  that  his  supply  of  information 
satisfied  all  reasonable  curiosity.  He  had  placed 
himself  in  the  hands  of  Betterton,  an  investigator 
at   first  hand.     But   the   fact   remains   that   Rowe 


80         SHAKESPEARE  IN  ORAL  TRADITION 

made  no  sustained  nor  scholarly  effort  to  collect 
exhaustively  even  the  oral  tradition;  still  less  did  he 
consult  ^\4th  thoroughness  official  records  or  refer- 
ences to  Shakespeare's  literary  achievements  in  the 
books  of  his  contemporaries.  Such  labour  as  that 
was  to  be  undertaken  later,  when  the  practice  of 
biography  had  assimilated  more  scientific  method. 
Rowe  preferred  the  straw  of  vague  rhapsody  to 
the  brick  of  solid  fact. 

Nevertheless  Rowe's  memoir  laid  the  founda- 
tions on  which  his  successors  built.  It  set  ringing 
the  bell  which  called  together  that  mass  of  informa- 
tion drawn  from  every  source — manuscript  archives, 
printed  books,  oral  tradition — which  now  far  ex- 
ceeds what  is  accessible  in  the  case  of  any  poet 
contemporary  with  Shakespeare.  Some  links  in 
the  chain  of  Shakespeare's  career  are  still  missing, 
and  we  must  wait  for  the  future  to  disclose  them. 
But,  though  the  clues  at  present  are  in  some 
places  faint,  the  trail  never  altogether  eludes  the 
patient  investigator.  The  ascertained  facts  are 
already  numerous  enough  to  define  bej^ond  risk  of 
intelligent  doubt  the  direction  that  Shakespeare's 
career  followed.  Its  general  outlijie  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  fully  established  by  one  souV-ce  of  knowledge 
alone — one  out  of  many — b}^  the  oral  tradition 
which  survives  from  the  seventeenth  century. 

It  may  be  justifiable  to  cherish  regret  for  the 
loss  of  Shakespeare's  autograph  papers  and  of  his 
familiar  correspondence.  But  the  absence  of  such 
documentary  material  can  excite  scepticism  of  the 
received  tradition  only  in  those  who  are  ignorant  of 
the  fate  that  invariably  befell  the  original  manu- 
scripts   and    correspondence    of    Elizabethan    and 


PRESENT  STATE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  81 

Jacobean  poets  and  dramatists.  Save  for  a  few 
fragments  of  small  literary  moment,  no  play  of  the 
era  in  its  writer's  autograph  escaped  early  destruc- 
tion by  fire  or  dustbin.  No  machinery  then  ensured, 
no  custom  then  encouraged,  the  due  preservation 
of  the  autographs  of  men  distinguished  for  poetic 
genius.  Provision  was  made  in  the  public  record 
offices  or  in  private  muniment-rooms  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  official  papers  and  correspondence  of 
men  in  public  life,  and  of  manuscript  memorials 
affecting  the  property  and  domestic  history  of  great 
county  families.  But  even  in  the  case  of  men  of 
the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century  in  official  fife 
who,  as  often  happened,  devoted  their  leisure  to 
Hterature,  the  autographs  of  their  literary  com- 
positions have  for  the  most  part  perished,  and 
there  usually  only  remain  in  the  official  depositories 
remnants  of  their  writings  about  matters  of  official 
routine. 

Not  all  those  depositories,  it  is  to  be  admitted, 
have  yet  been  fully  explored,  and  in  some  of  them 
a  more  thorough  search  than  has  yet  been  under- 
taken may  be  expected  to  throw  new  fight  on 
Shakespeare's  biography.  Meanwhile,  instead  of 
mourning  helplessly  over  the  lack  of  material  for  a 
know^ledge  of  Shakespeare's  life,  it  becomes  us  to 
estimate  aright  what  we  have  at  our  command,  to 
study  it  closely  in  the  light  of  the  fiterary  history  of 
the  epoch,  and,  while  neglecting  no  opportunity  of 
bettering  our  information,  to  recognise  frankly  the 
activity  of  the  destro}dng  agencies  which  have  been 
at  work  from  the  outset.  Then  we  shall  wonder, 
not  why  we  know  so  little,  but  w^hy  we  know  so 
much. 


IV 

PEPYS  AND   SHAKESPEARE! 

I 

In  his  capacity  of  playgoer,  as  indeed  in  almost 
every  other  capacity,  Pepys  presents  himself  to 
readers  of  his  naive  diary  as  the  incarnation,  or  the 
microcosm,  of  the  average  man.  No  other  writer 
has  pictured  with  the  same  lifelike  precision  and 
simplicity  the  average  playgoer's  sensations  of 
pleasure  or  pain.  Of  the  play  and  its  performers 
Pepys  records  exactly  what  he  thinks  or  feels.  He 
usually  takes  a  more  lively  interest  in  the  acting 
and  in  the  scenic  and  musical  accessories  than  in 
the  drama's  literary  quality.  Subtlety  is  at  any 
rate  absent  from  his  criticism.  He  is  either  bored 
or  amused.  The  piece  is  either  the  best  or  the  worst 
that  he  ever  witnessed.  His  epithets  are  of  the 
bluntest  and  are  without  modulation.  Wiser  than 
more  professional  dramatic  critics,  he  avoids  labour- 
ing at  reasons  for  his  emphatic  judgments. 

Always  true  to  his  role  of  the  average  man,  Pepys 
suffers  his  mind  to  be  swayed  by  barely  relevant 
accidents.     His  thought  is  rarely  free  from  official 

^  A  paper  read  at  the  sixth  meeting  of  the  Samuel  Pepys  Club, 
on  Thursday,  November  30,  1905,  and  printed  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  for  January,  1906. 
82 


PEPYS  AS  PLAYGOER  83 

or  domestic  business,  and  the  heaviness  or  lightness 
of  his  personal  cares  commonly  colours  his  play- 
house impressions.  His  praises  and  his  censures  of 
a  piece  often  reflect,  too,  the  physical  comforts  or 
discomforts  which  attach  to  his  seat  in  the  theatre. 
He  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to  petty  annoyances — to 
the  agony  of  sitting  in  a  draught,  or  to  the  irrita- 
tion caused  by  frivolous  talk  in  his  near  neighbour- 
hood while  a  serious  play  is  in  progress.  On  one 
occasion,  when  he  sought  to  practise  a  praiseworthy 
economy  by  taking  a  back  seat  in  the  shilhng  gallery 
his  evening's  enjo\Tnent  was  well-nigh  spoiled  by 
finding  the  gaze  of  four  clerks  in  his  office  steadily 
directed  upon  him  from  more  expensive  seats  down 
below.  On  another  occasion,  when  in  the  pit  with 
his  wife  and  her  waiting-woman,  he  was  overcome 
by  a  sense  of  shame  as  he  reahsed  how  shabbily 
his  companions  were  dressed,  in  comparison  with 
the  smartly-attired  ladies  round  about  them. 

Everj^one  knows  how  susceptible  Pepys  was  in 
all  situations  of  life  to  female  charms.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  his  wits  should  often  wander  from 
the  dramatic  theme  and  its  scenic  presentation  to 
the  features  of  some  woman  on  the  stage  or  in  the 
auditor}\  An  actress's  pretty  face  or  graceful  fig- 
ure many  times  diverted  his  attention  from  her 
professional  incompetence.  It  is  doubtful  if  there 
were  any  affront  which  Pepys  would  not  pardon  in 
a  pretty  woman.  Once  when  he  was  in  the  pit, 
this  curious  experience  befell  him.  ''I  sitting  be- 
hind in  a  dark  place,"  he  writes,  "a  lady  spit  back- 
ward upon  me  by  mistake,  not  seeing  me;  but  after 
seeing  her  to  be  a  very  pretty  lady,  I  was  not 
troubled  at  it  at  all."     The  volatile  diarist  studied 


84  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

much  besides  the  drama  when  he  spent  his  after- 
noon or  evening  at  the  play. 

Never  was  there  a  more  indefatigable  playgoer 
than  Pepys.  Yet  his  enthusiasm  for  the  theatre 
was,  to  his  mind,  a  faiUng  which  required  most 
careful  watching.  He  feared  that  the  passion  might 
do  injury  to  his  purse,  might  distract  him  from 
serious  business,  might  lead  him  into  temptation 
of  the  flesh.  He  had  a  little  of  the  Puritan's  dread 
of  the  playhouse.  He  was  constantly  taking  vows 
to  curb  his  love  of  plays,  which  '' mightily  troubled 
his  mind."  He  was  frequently  resolving  to  abstain 
from  the  theatre  for  four  or  five  months  at  a  stretch, 
and  then  to  go  only  in  the  company  of  his  wife. 
During  these  periods  of  abstinence  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  reading  over  his  vows  ever}^  Sunday.  But, 
in  spite  of  all  his  well-meaning  efforts,  his  resolu- 
tion was  constantly  breaking  down.  On  one  oc- 
casion he  perjured  himself  so  thoroughly  as  to 
witness  two  plays  in  one  day,  once  in  the  afternoon 
and  again  in  the  evening.  On  this  riotous  outbreak 
he  makes  the  characteristic  comment:  '^Sad  to 
think  of  the  spending  so  much  money,  and  of  ventur- 
ing the  breach  of  my  vow."  But  he  goes  on  to 
thank  God  that  he  had  the  grace  to  feel  sorry  for 
the  misdeed,  at  the  same  time  as  he  lamented  that 
'^  his  nature  was  so  content  to  follow  the  pleasure 
still."  Pepys  compounded  with  his  conscience  for 
such  breaches  of  his  oath  by  all  manner  of  casuistry. 
He  excused  himself  for  going,  contrary  to  his  vow, 
to  the  new  theatre  in  Drury  Lane,  because  it  was 
not  built  when  his  vow  was  framed.  Finally,  he 
stipulated  with  himself  that  he  would  only  go  to 
the  theatre  once  a  fortnight;  but  if  he  went  oftener  he 


PEPYS'S  VISITS  TO  THEATRES  85 

would  give  £10  to  the  poor.  ''This/'  he  added, 
''  I  hope  in  God  mil  bind  me."  The  last  reference 
that  he  makes  to  his  vows  is  when,  in  contraven- 
tion of  them,  he  went  with  his  wife  to  the  Duke  of 
York's  House,  and  found  the  place  full,  and  himself 
unable  to  obtain  seats.  He  makes  a  final  record 
of  ''the  saving  of  his  vow,  to  his  great  content." 

n 

All  self-imposed  restrictions  notwithstanding, 
Pepys  contrived  to  visit  the  theatre  no  less  than 
three  hundred  and  fifty-one  times  during  the  nine 
years  and  five  months  that  he  kept  his  diary.  It 
has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that,  for  more  than  twelve 
months  of  that  period,  the  London  playhouses  were 
for  the  most  part  closed,  owing  to  the  Great  Plague 
and  the  Fire.  Had  Pepys  gone  at  regular  intervals, 
when  the  theatres  were  open,  he  would  have  been 
a  playgoer  at  least  once  a  week.  But,  owing  to  his 
vows,  his  visits  fell  at  most  irregular  intervals. 
Sometimes  he  went  three  or  four  times  a  week,  or 
even  twice  in  one  day.  Then  there  would  follow 
eight  or  nine  weeks  of  abstinence.  If  a  piece  es- 
pecially took  his  fancy,  he  would  see  it  six  or  seven 
times  in  fairly  quick  succession.  Long  runs  were 
unknown  to  the  theatre  of  Pepys's  day,  but  a  suc- 
cessful piece  was  frequently  revived.  Occasionally, 
Pepys  would  put  himself  to  the  trouble  of  attending 
a  first  night.  But  this  was  an  indulgence  that  he 
practised  sparingly.  He  resented  the  manager's 
habit  of  doubling  the  price  of  the  seats,  and  he  was 
irritated  by  the  frequent  want  of  adequate  rehearsal. 

Pepys's  theatrical  experience  began  with  the  re- 
opening of  theatres  after  the  severe  penalty  of  sup- 


86  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

pression,  which  the  Civil  Wars  and  the  Common- 
wealth imposed  on  them  for  nearly  eighteen  years. 
His  playgoing  diary  thus  became  an  invaluable 
record  of  a  new  birth  of  theatrical  life  in  London. 
When,  in  the  summer  of  1660,  General  Monk  oc- 
cupied London  for  the  restored  King,  Charles  II., 
three  of  the  old  theatres  were  still  standing  empty. 
These  were  soon  put  into  repair,  and  applied  anew 
to  theatrical  uses,  although  only  two  of  them  seem 
to  have  been  open  at  any  one  time.  The  three 
houses  were  the  Red  Bull,  dating  from  Elizabeth's 
reign,  in  St  John's  Street,  Clerkenwell,  where  Pepys 
saw  Marlowe's  Faustus ;  Salisbury  Court,  White- 
friars,  off  Fleet  Street ;  and  the  Old  Cockpit  in  Drury 
Lane,  both  of  which  were  of  more  recent  origin.  To 
all  these  theatres  Pepys  paid  early  visits.  But  the 
Cockpit  in  Drury  Lane,  was  the  scene  of  some  of  his 
most  stirring  experiences.  There  he  saw  his  first  play, 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Loyal  Subject;  and  there, 
too,  he  saw  his  first  play  by  Shakespeare,  Othello. 

But  these  three  theatres  were  in  decay,  and  new 
and  sumptuous  buildings  soon  took  their  places. 
One  of  the  new  playhouses  was  in  Portugal  Row, 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields;  the  other,  on  the  site  of  the 
present  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  was  the  first  of  the 
many  playhouses  that  sprang  up  there.  It  is  to 
these  two  theatres — Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  and  Drury 
Lane — that  Pepys  in  his  diary  most  often  refers. 
He  calls  each  of  them  by  many  different  names, 
and  the  unwary  reader  might  infer  that  London  was 
very  richly  supplied  with  playhouses  in  Pepys's 
day.  But  public  theatres  in  active  work  at  this 
period  of  our  history  were  not  permitted  by  the 
authorities  to  exceed  two.     ''The  Opera"  and  ''the 


LONDON  THEATRES  AT  THE  RESTORATION      87 

Duke's  House"  are  merely  Pepys's  alternative 
designations  of  the  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  Theatre; 
while  '^the  Theatre,"  '^Theatre  Royal,"  and  ''the 
King's  House,"  are  the  varying  titles  which  he 
bestows  on  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre.^ 

Besides  these  two  public  theatres  there  was,  in 
the  final  constitution  of  the  theatrical  world  in 
Pepys's  London,  a  third,  which  stood  on  a  different 
footing.  A  theatre  was  attached  to  the  King's 
Court  at  Whitehall,  and  there  performances  were 
given  at  the  King's  command  by  actors  from  the 
two  public  houses.2  The  private  Whitehall  theatre 
was  open  to  the  pubUc  on  payment,  and  Pepys  was 
frequently  there. 

At  one  period  of  his  Ufe  Pepys  held  that  his  vows 
did  not  apply  to  the  Court  theatre,  which  was  mainly 
distinguished  from  the  other  houses  by  the  circum- 
stances that  the  performances  were  given  at  night. 
At  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  or  Drury  Lane  it  was  only 
permitted  to  perform  in  the  afternoon.  Half-past 
three  was  the  usual  hour  for  opening  the  proceed- 

^At  the  restoration  of  King  Charles  II.,  no  more  than  two 
companies  of  actors  received  licenses  to  perform  in  public.  One 
of  these  companies  was  directed  by  Sir  William  D'Avenant, 
Shakespeare's  reputed  godson,  and  was  under  the  patronage  of 
the  King's  brother,  the  Duke  of  York.  The  other  was  directed 
by  Tom  Killigrew,  one  of  Charles  II. 's  boon  companions,  and  was 
under  the  patronage  of  the  King  himself.  In  due  time  the  Duke's, 
or  D'Avenant's,  company  occupied  the  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  and  the  King's,  or  Killigrew's,  company  occupied  the  new 
building  in  Drury  Lane. 

-  Charles  II.  formed  this  private  theatre  out  of  a  detached 
building  in  St.  James's  Park,  known  as  the  "  Cockpit,"  and  to 
be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  Cockpit  of  Drury  Lane.  Part 
of  the  edifice  was  occupied  by  courtiers  by  favour  of  the  King. 
General  Monk  had  lodgings  there.  At  a  much  later  date,  cabinet 
councils  were  often  held  there. 


88  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

ings.  At  Whitehall  the  play  began  about  eight, 
and  often  lasted  till  near  midnight. 

The  general  organisation  of  Pepys's  auditorium 
was  much  as  it  is  to-day.  It  had  improved  in  many 
particulars  since  Shakespeare  died.  The  pit  was 
the  most  popular  part  of  the  house;  it  covered  the 
floor  of  the  building,  and  was  provided  with  seats; 
the  price  of  admission  was  2s.  6d.  The  company 
there  seems  to  have  been  extremely  mixed;  men 
and  women  of  fashion  often  rubbed  elbows  with 
City,  shopkeepers,  their  wives,  and  apprentices. 
The  first  gallery  was  wholly  occupied  by  boxes,  in 
which  seats  could.be  hired  separately  at  4s.  apiece. 
Above  the  boxes  was  the  middle  gallery,  the  central 
part  of  which  was  filled  with  benches,  where  the  seats 
cost  Is.  6d.  each,  while  boxes  lined  the  sides.  The 
highest  tier  was  the  Is.  gallery,  where  footmen  soon 
held  sway.  As  Pepys's  fortune  improved,  he  spent 
more  on  his  place  in  the  theatre.  From  the  Is. 
gallery  he  descended  to  the  Is.  6d.,  and  thence  came 
down  to  the  pit,  occasionally  ascending  to  the  boxes 
on  the  first  tier. 

In  the  methods  of  representation,  Pepys's  period 
of  plaj^-going  was  coeval  with  many  most  important 
innovations,  which  seriously  affected  the  presenta- 
tion of  Shakespeare  on  the  stage.  The  chief  was 
the  desirable  substitution  of  women  for  boys  in  the 
female  roles.  During  the  first  few  months  of  Pepj^s's 
theatrical  experience,  boys  were  still  taking  the 
women's  parts.  That  the  practice  survived  in  the 
first  days  of  Charles  II. 's  reign  we  know  from  the 
well-worn  anecdote  that  when  the  King  sent  behind 
the  scenes  to  inquire  why  the  play  of  Hamlet,  which 
he  had  come  to  see,  was  so  late  in  commencing,  he 


INNOVATIONS  IN  THE  PLAYHOUSE  89 

was  answered  that  the  Queen  was  not  yet  shaved. 
But  in  the  opening  month  of  1661,  within  five 
months  of  Pepys's  first  visit  to  a  theatre,  the  reign 
of  the  boys  ended.  On  January  3rd  of  that  year, 
Pepys  writes  that  he  ''first  saw  women  come  upon 
the  stage."  Next  night  he  makes  entry  of  a  boy's 
performance  of  a  woman's  part,  and  that  was  the 
final  record  of  boys  masquerading  as  women  in  the 
English  theatre.  I  believe  the  practice  now  sur- 
vives nowhere  except  in  Japan.  This  mode  of 
representation  has  ahvays  been  a  great  puzzle  to 
students  of  Elizabethan  drama.  ^  Before,  however, 
Pepys  saw  Shakespeare's  work  on  the  stage,  the 
usurpation  of  the  boys  was  over. 

It  was  after  the  Restoration,  too,  that  scenerj^, 
rich  costume,  and  scenic  machinery  became,  to 
Pepys' s  delight,  regular  features  of  the  theatre. 
When  the  diarist  saw  Hamlet  ''done  with  scenes" 
for  the  first  time,  he  was  most  favourably  impressed. 
Musical  accompaniment  was  known  to  pre-Restora- 
tion  days;  but  the  orchestra  was  now  for  the  first 
time  placed  on  the  floor  of  the  house  in  front  of  the 
stage,  instead  of  in  a  side  gallery,  or  on  the  stage 
itself.  The  musical  accompaniment  of  plays  de- 
veloped very  rapidly,  and  the  methods  of  opera 
were  soon  appHed  to  many  of  Shakespeare's  pieces, 
notably  to  The  Tempest  and  Macbeth. 

Yet  at  the  side  of  these  innovations,  one  very 
important  feature  of  the  old  playhouses,  which 
gravely  concerned  both  actors  and  auditors,  survived 
throughout  Pepys' s  lifetime.  The  stage  still  pro- 
jected far  into  the  pit  in  front  of  the  curtain.  The 
actors  and  actresses  spoke  in  the  centre  of  the  house, 

^  For  a  fuller  description  of  this  theatrical  practice  see  pages 
41-43  supra. 


90  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

SO  that,  as  Colley  Gibber  put  it,  ''the  most  distant 
ear  had  scarce  the  least  doubt  or  difficulty  in  hearing 
what  fell  from  the  weakest  utterance  .  .  .  nor  was 
the  minutest  motion  of  a  feature,  properly  changing 
with  the  passion  or  humour  it  suited,  ever  lost,  as 
they  frequently  must  be,  in  the  obscurity  of  too 
great  a  distance."  The  platform-stage,  with  which 
Shakespeare  was  familiar,  suffered  no  curtailment 
in  the  English  theatres  till  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  the  fore-edge  of  the  boards  was  for  the  first 
time  made  to  run  level  with  the  proscenium. 

Ill 

One  of  the  obvious  results  of  the  long  suppression 
of  the  theatres  during  the  Civil  Wars  and  Common- 
wealth was  the  temporary  extinction  of  play-writing 
in  England.  On  the  sudden  reopening  of  the  play- 
houses at  the  Restoration,  the  managers  had  mainly 
to  rely  for  sustenance  on  the  drama  of  a  long-past 
age.  Of  the  one  hundred  and  forty-five  separate 
plays  which  Pepys  witnessed,  fully  half  belonged  to 
the  great  period  of  dramatic  activity  in  England, 
which  covered  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth,  James  I.,  and 
Charles  I.  John  Evelyn's  well-known  remark  in  his 
Diary  (November  26,  1661):  ''I  saw  Hamlet,  Prince 
of  Denmark,  played;  but  now  the  old  plays  begin 
to  disgust  this  refined  age,"  requires  much  qualifica- 
tion before  it  can  be  made  to  apply  to  Pepys's 
records  of  playgoing.  It  was  in  ''the  old  plays" 
that  he  and  all  average  playgoers  mainly  delighted. 

Not  that  the  new  demand  failed  quickly  to 
create  a  supply  of  new  plays  for  the  stage.  Dryden 
and  D'Avenant,  the  chief  dramatists  of  Pepys's 
day,  were  rapid  writers.     To  a  large  extent  they 


PEPYS'S  FAVOURITE  PLAYS       91 

carried  on,  with  exaggeration  of  its  defects  and 
diminution  of  its  merits,  the  old  Elizabethan  tradi- 
tion of  heroic  romance,  tragedy,  and  farce.  The 
more  matter-of-fact  and  lower-principled  comedy 
of  manners,  which  is  commonly  reckoned  the  chief 
characteristic  of  the  new  era  in  theatrical  history, 
was  only  just  beginning  when  Pepys  was  reaching 
the  end  of  his  diary.  The  virtual  leaders  of  the  new 
movement — Wycherley,  Vanbrugh,  Farquhar,  and 
Congreve — were  not  at  work  till  long  after  Pepys 
ceased  to  write.  He  records  only  the  first  runnings 
of  that  sparkling  stream.  He  witnessed  some  im- 
pudent comedies  of  Dry  den,  Etherege,  and  Sedley. 
But  it  is  important  to  note  that  he  formed  a  low 
opinion  of  all  of  them.  Their  intellectual  ghtter 
did  not  appeal  to  him.  Their  cynical  licentiousness 
seemed  to  him  to  be  merely  '^ silly."  One  might 
have  anticipated  from  him  a  different  verdict  on 
the  frank  obscenity  of  Restoration  drama.  But 
there  are  the  facts.  Neither  did  Mr  Pepys,  nor  (he 
is  careful  to  remind  us)  did  Mrs  Pepys,  take  '^any 
manner  of  pleasure  in"  the  bold  indelicacy  of  Dry- 
den,  Etherege,  or  Sedley. 

When  we  ask  what  sort  of  pieces  Pepys  appreci- 
ated, we  seem  to  be  faced  by  further  perplexities. 
His  highest  enthusiasm  was  evoked  by  certain  plays 
of  Ben  Jonson,  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  of 
Massinger.  Near  the  zenith  of  his  scale  of  dramatic 
excellence  he  set  the  comedies  of  Ben  Jonson,  which 
are  remarkable  for  their  portrayal  of  eccentricity 
of  character.  These  pieces,  which  incline  to  farce, 
give  great  opportunity  to  what  is  commonly  called 
character-acting,  and  character-acting  always  ap- 
peals most  directly  to  average  humanity.     Pepys 


92  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

called  Jonson's  Alchemist  ''a  most  incomparable 
play,"  and  he  found  in  Every  Man  in  his  Humour 
*Hhe  greatest  propriety  of  speech  that  ever  I  read 
in  my  life."  Similarly,  both  the  heroic  tragedies 
and  the  comedies  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  of 
which  he  saw  no  less  than  nineteen,  roused  in  him, 
as  a  rule,  an  ecstatic  admiration.  But  of  all  dra- 
matic entertainments  which  the  theatre  offered  him, 
Pepys  was  most  ''taken"  by  the  romantic  comedy 
from  the  pen  of  Massinger,  which  is  called  The 
Bondman.  ''There  is  nothing  more  taking  in  the 
world  with  me  than  that  play,"  he  writes. 

Massinger' s  Bondman  is  a  well-written  piece,  in 
which  an  heroic  interest  is  fused  with  a  genuine 
spirit  of  low  comedy.  Yet  Pepys's  unqualified 
conmiendation  of  it  presents  a  problem.  Massing- 
er's  play,  like  the  cognate  work  of  Fletcher,  offers 
much  episode  which  is  hardly  less  indecent  than 
those  early  specimens  of  Restoration  comedy  of 
which  Pepys  disapproved.  A  leading  character  is 
a  frowsy  wife  who  faces  all  manner  of  humiliation, 
in  order  to  enjoy,  behind  her  elderly  husband's 
back,  the  embraces  of  a  good-looking  youth. 

Pepys  is  scarcely  less  tolerant  of  Fletcher's  more 
flagrant  infringements  of  propriety.  In  the  whole 
of  the  Elizabethan  drama  there  was  no  piece  which 
presented  so  liberal  a  mass  of  indeUcacy  as  Fletcher's 
Custom  of  the  Country.  Dryden,  who  was  innocent 
of  prudery,  declared  that  there  was  "more  in- 
decency" in  that  drama  "than  in  all  our  plays  to- 
gether." This  was  one  of  the  pieces  which  Pepys 
twice  saw  performed  after  carefully  reading  it  in 
his  study,  and  he  expressed  admiration  for  the 
rendering  of  the  widow's  part  by  his  pretty  friend, 


MASSINGER'S  BONDMAN  93 

Mistress  Knipp.  One  has  to  admit  that  Pepys 
condemned  the  play  from  a  hterary  point  of  view  as 
"si  very  poor  one,  me  thinks,"  as  ''fully  the  worst 
play  that  I  saw  or  beUeve  shall  see."  But  the 
pleasure  which  Mistress  Knipp's  share  in  the  per- 
formance gave  him  suggests,  in  the  absence  of  any 
explicit  disclaimer,  that  the  improprieties  of  both 
plot  and  characters  escaped  his  notice,  or,  at  any 
rate,  excited  in  him  no  disgust.  Massinger's  Bond- 
man, Pepys's  ideal  of  merit  in  drama,  has  little  of  the 
excessive  grossness  of  the  Custom  of  the  Country. 
But  to  some  extent  it  is  tarred  with  the  same  brush. 
Pepys's  easy  principles  never  lend  themselves  to 
very  strict  definition.  Yet  he  may  be  credited  with 
a  certain  measure  of  discernment  in  pardoning  the 
indelicacy  of  Fletcher  and  Massinger,  while  he  con- 
demns that  of  Dryden,  Etherege,  or  Sedley.  In- 
delicacy in  the  older  dramatists  does  not  ignore 
worthier  interests.  Other  topics  attracted  the  earlier 
writers  besides  conjugal  infidelity  and  the  frailty 
of  virgins,  which  were  the  sole  themes  of  Restora- 
tion comedy.  Massinger's  heroes  are  not  always 
gay  seducers.  His  husbands  are  not  always  fools. 
Pepys  might  quite  consistently  scorn  the  ribaldry 
of  Etherege  and  condone  the  obscenity  of  Fletcher. 
It  was  a  question  of  degree.  Pepys  was  clear  in 
his  own  mind  that  a  line  must  be  drawn  somewhere, 
though  it  would  probably  have  taxed  his  logical 
power  to  make  the  delimitation  precise. 


IV 

There  is,  apparently,  a  crowning  difficulty  of  far 
greater   moment    when    finally    estimating    Pepys's 

^     or  THr  X 

UN{VER8ITY  J 


94  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

taste  in  dramatic  literature.  Despite  his  admira- 
tion for  the  ancient  drama,  he  acknowledged  a  very 
tempered  regard  for  the  greatest  of  all  the  old  dram- 
atists— Shakespeare.  He  hved  and  died  in  com- 
placent unconsciousness  of  Shakespeare's  supreme 
excellence.  Such  innocence  is  attested  by  his  con- 
duct outside,  as  well  as  inside,  the  theatre.  He 
prided  himself  on  his  taste  as  a  reader  and  a  book 
collector,  and  bought  for  his  hbrary  many  plays 
in  quarto  which  he  diligently  perused.  Numerous 
separately  issued  pieces  by  Shakespeare  laj^  at  his 
disposal  in  the  bookshops.  But  he  only  records 
the  purchase  of  one — the  first  part  of  Henry  IV., 
though  he  mentions  that  h^  read  in  addition  Othello 
and  Hamlet.  \\Tien  his  bookseller  first  offered  him 
the  great  First  Folio  edition  of  Shakespeare's  works, 
he  rejected  it  for  Fuller's  Worthies  and  the  newl}^- 
published  Butler's  Hudibras,  in  which,  by  the  way, 
he  failed  to  discover  the  wit.  Ultimately  he  bought 
the  newly-issued  second  impression  of  the  Third 
FoHo  Shakespeare,  along  with  copies  of  Spelman's 
Glossary  and  Scapula's  Lexicon.  To  these  soporific 
works  of  reference  he  apparently  regarded  the  dram- 
atist's volume  as  a  fitting  pendant.  He  seemed 
subsequently  to  have  exchanged  the  Third  Folio 
for  a  Fourth,  by  which  volume  alone  is  Shakespeare 
represented  in  the  extant  library  that  Pepys  be- 
queathed to  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge. 

As  a  regular  playgoer  at  a  time  when  the  stage 
mainly  depended  on  the  drama  of  Elizabethan  daj^s, 
Pepys  was  bound  to  witness  numerous  performances 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  On  the  occasion  of  forty- 
one  of  his  three  hundred  and  fifty-one  visits  to  the 
theatre,  Pepys  listened  to  plays  by  Shakespeare,  or 


DEPRECIATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE  95 

to  pieces  based  upon  them.  Once  in  every  eight 
performances  Shakespeare  was  presented  to  his 
view.  Fourteen  was  the  number  of  different  plays 
by  Shakespeare  which  Pepys  saw  during  these  forty- 
one  visits.  Very  few  caused  him  genuine  pleasure. 
At  least  three  he  condemns,  without  any  qualifica- 
tion, as  'Hedious,"  or  ''silly."  In  the  case  of  others, 
while  he  ignored  the  literary  merit,  he  enjoyed  the 
scenery  and  music  with  which,  in  accordance  with 
current  fashion,  the  dramatic  poetry  was  overlaid. 
In  only  two  cases,  in  the  case  of  two  tragedies — 
Othello  and  Hamlet — does  he  show  at  any  time  a 
true  appreciation  of  the  dramatic  quality,  and  in 
the  case  of  Othello  he  came  in  course  of  years  to 
abandon  his  good  opinion. 

Pepys's  moderate  praise  and  immoderate  blame 
of  Shakespeare  are  only  superficially  puzzUng.  The 
ultimate  solution  is  not  difficult.  Despite  his  love 
of  music  and  his  zeal  as  a  collector,  Pepys  was  the 
most  matter-of-fact  of  men;  he  was  essentially  a 
man  of  business.  Not  that  he  had  any  distaste  for 
timely  recreation;  he  was,  indeed,  readily  suscepti- 
ble to  every  manner  of  commonplace  pleasures — to 
all  the  delights  of  both  mind  and  sense  which 
appeal  to  the  practical  and  hard-headed  type  of 
Englishman.  Things  of  the  imagination,  on  the 
other  hand,  stood  with  him  on  a  different  footing. 
They  were  out  of  his  range  or  sphere.  Poetry  and 
romance,  unless  liberally  compounded  with  prosaic 
ingredients,  bored  him  on  the  stage  and  elsewhere. 

In  the  plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  of 
Massinger  and  Ben  Jonson,  poetry  and  romance 
were  for  the  most  part  kept  in  the  background. 
Such  elements  lay  there  behind  a  substantial  barrier 


96  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

of  conventional  stage  machinery  and  elocutionary 
scaffolding.  In  Shakespeare,  poetry  and  romance 
usually  eluded  the  mechanical  restrictions  of  the 
theatre.  The  gold  had  a  tendency  to  separate  itself 
from  the  alloy,  and  Pepys  only  found  poetry  and 
romance  endurable  when  they  were  pretty  thickly 
veiled  behind  the  commonplaces  of  rhetoric,  or  broad 
fun,  or  the  realistic  ingenuity  of  the  stage  carpenter 
and  upholsterer. 

There  is,  consequently,  no  cause  for  surprise  that 
Pepys  should  write  thus  of  Shakespeare's  ethereal 
comedy  of  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream:  "Then  to  the 
King's  Theatre,  where  we  saw  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  which  I  had  never  seen  before,  nor  shall  ever 
again,  for  it  is  the  most  insipid,  ridiculous  play  that 
ever  I  saw  in  my  life.  I  saw,  I  confess,  some  good 
dancing  and  some  handsome  women,  which  was  all 
my  pleasure."  This  is  Pepys's  ordinary  attitude  of 
mind  to  undiluted  poetry  on  the  stage. 

Pepys  only  saw  A  Midsummer  NighVs  Dream  once. 
Twelfth  Night,  of  which  he  wrote  in  very  similar 
strains,  he  saw  thrice.  On  the  first  occasion  his  impa- 
tience of  this  romantic  play  was  due  to  external  causes. 
He  went  to  the  theatre  "against  his  own  mind  and 
resolution."  He  was  over-persuaded  to  go  in  by  a 
friend,  with  whom  he  was  casually  walking  past  the 
house  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  Moreover,  he  had  just 
sworn  to  his  wife  that  he  would  never  go  to  a  play 
without  her:  all  which  considerations  "made  the 
piece  seem  a  burden"  to  him.  He  witnessed  Twelfth 
Night  twice  again  in  a  less  perturbed  spirit,  and  then 
he  called  it  a  "silly"  play,  or  "one  of  the  weakest 
plays  that  ever  I  saw  on  the  stage." 

Again,  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Pepys  wrote:  "It  is 


PEPYS  ON  FALSTAFF  97 

a  play  of  itself  the  worst  I  ever  heard  in  my  life." 
This  verdict,  it  is  right  to  add,  was  attributable,  in 
part  at  least,  to  Pepys's  irritation  at  the  badness 
of  the  acting,  and  at  the  actors'  ignorance  of  their 
words.     It  was  a  first  night. 

The  literary  critic  knows  well  enough  that  the 
merit  of  these  three  pieces — A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  Twelfth  Night,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet — 
mainly  lies  in  their  varied  wealth  of  poetic  imagery 
and  passion.  One  thing  alone  could  render  the 
words,  in  which  poetic  genius  finds  voice,  tolerable 
in  the  playhouse  to  a  spectator  of  Pepys's  prosaic 
temperament.  The  one  thing  needful  is  inspired  act- 
ing, and  in  the  case  of  these  three  plays,  when  Pepys 
saw  them  performed,  inspired  acting  was  wanting. 

It  is  at  first  sight  disconcerting  to  find  Pepys  no 
less  impatient  of  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 
He  expresses  a  mild  interest  in  the  humours  of 
'Hhe  country  gentleman  and  the  French  doctor." 
But  he  condemns  the  play  as  a  whole.  It  is  in 
his  favour  that  his  bitterest  reproaches  are  aimed  at 
the  actors  and  actresses.  One  can  hardly  conceive 
that  FclstafT,  fitly  interpreted,  would  have  failed 
to  satisfy  Pepys's  taste  in  humour,  commonplace 
though  it  was.  He  is  not  quite  explicit  on  the 
point;  but  there  are  signs  that  the  histrionic  inter- 
pretation of  Shakespeare's  colossal  humorist,  rather 
than  the  dramatist's  portrayal  of  the  character, 
caused  the  diarist's  disappointment. 

Just  before  Pepys  saw  the  first  part  of  Henry 
IV.,  wherein  Falstaff  figures  to  supreme  advantage, 
he  had  bought  and  read  the  play  in  quarto.  ''But 
my  expectation  being  too  great"  (he  avers),  ''it  did 
not  please  me  as  otherwise  I  beUeve  it  would." 


98  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

Here  it  seems  clear  that  his  hopes  of  the  actor  were 
unfulfilled.  However,  he  saw  Henry  IV.  again  a 
few  months  later,  and  had  the  grace  to  describe  it 
as  '^a  good  play."  On  a  third  occasion  he  wrote 
that,  ''contrary  to  expectation,"  he  was  pleased 
by  the  delivery  of  Falstaff's  ironical  speech  about 
honour.  For  whatever  reason,  Pepys's  affection  for 
Shakespeare's  fat  knight,  as  he  figured  on  the  stage 
of  his  day,  never  touched  the  note  of  exaltation. 

Of  Shakespeare's  great  tragedies  Pepys  saw  three 
— Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Macbeth.  But  in  considering 
his  several  impressions  of  these  pieces,  we  have  to 
make  an  important  proviso.  Only  the  first  two  of 
them  did  he  witness  in  the  authentic  version.  Mac- 
beth underwent  in  his  day  a  most  liberal  trans- 
formation, which  carried  it  far  from  its  primor- 
dial purity.  The  impressions  he  finally  formed  of 
Othello  and  Hamlet  are  not  consistent  one  with  the 
other,  but  are  eminently  characteristic  of  the  variable 
moods  of  the  average  playgoer. 

Othello  he  saw  twice,  and  he  tells  us  more  of  the 
acting  than  of  the  play  itself.  On  his  first  visit  he 
notes  that  the  lady  next  him  shrieked  on  seeing 
Desdemona  smothered:  a  proof  of  the  strength  of 
the  histrionic  illusion.  Up  to  the  year  1666  Pepys 
adhered  to  the  praiseworthy  opinion  that  Othello 
was  a  ''mighty  good"  play.  But  in  that  year  his 
judgment  took  a  turn  for  the  worse,  and  that  for  a 
reason  which  finally  convicts  him  of  incapacity  to 
pass  just  sentence  on  the  poetic  or  literary  drama. 
On  August  20,  1666,  he  writes:  "Read  Othello,  Moor 
of  Venice,  which  I  have  ever  heretofore  esteemed  a 
mighty  good  play;  but  having  so  lately  read  the 
Adventures  of  Five  Hours,  it  seems  a  mean  thing." 


PEPYS  ON  OTHELLO  99 

Most  lovers  of  Shakespeare  will  agree  that  the 
great  dramatist  rarely  showed  his  mature  powers  to 
more  magnificent  advantage  than  in  his  treatment 
of  plot  and  character  in  OtJiello.  What,  then,  is  this 
Adventures  of  Five  Hours,  compared  with  which 
Othello  became  in  Pepys's  eyes  "sl  mean  thing"?  It 
is  a  trivial  comedy  of  intrigue,  adapted  from  the 
Spanish  by  one  Sir  Samuel  Tuke.  A  choleric 
guardian  arranges  for  his  ward,  who  also  happens 
to  be  his  sister,  to  marry  against  her  will  a  man 
whom  she  has  never  seen.  Without  her  guardian's 
knowledge  she,  before  the  design  goes  further,  es- 
capes with  a  lover  of  her  own  choosing.  In  her 
place  she  leaves  a  close  friend,  who  is  wooed  in 
mistake  for  herself  by  the  suitor  destined  for  her 
own  hand.  This  is  the  main  dramatic  point;  the 
thread  is  very  slender,  and  is  drawn  out  to  its  ut- 
most hmits  through  five  acts  of  blank  verse.  The 
language  and  metre  are  scrupulously  correct.  But 
one  cannot  credit  the  play  with  any  touch  of  poetry 
or  imagination.  It  presents  a  trite  theme  tamely 
and  prosaically.  Congenital  inabihty  of  the  most 
inveterate  toughness  to  appreciate  dramatic  poetry 
could  alone  account  for  a  mention  of  the  Adventures 
of  Five  Hours  in  the  same  breath  with  Othello. 

Pepys  did  not  again  fall  so  low  as  this.  The  only 
other  tragedy  of  Shakespeare  which  he  saw  in  its  au- 
thentic purity  moved  him,  contradictorily,  to  trans- 
ports of  unquahfied  delight.  One  is  glad  to  recall  that 
Hamlet,  one  of  the  greatest  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 
received  from  Pepys  ungrudging  commendation. 
Pepys's  favourable  opinion  of  Hamlet  is  to  be  assigned 
to  two  causes.  One  is  the  Uterary  and  psychological 
attractions  of  the  piece;  the  other,  and  perhaps  the 


100  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

more  important,  is  the  manner  in  which  the  play 
was  interpreted  on  the  stage  of  Pepys's  time. 

Pepys  is  not  the  only  owner  of  a  prosaic  mind 
who  has  found  satisfaction  in  Shakespeare's  portrait 
of  the  Prince  of  Denmark.  Over  minds  of  almost 
every  calibre,  that  hero  of  the  stage  has  always 
exerted  a  pathetic  fascination,  which  natural  antipa- 
thy to  poetry  seems  unable  to  extinguish.  Pepys's 
testimony  to  his  respect  for  the  piece  is  abundant. 
The  whole  of  one  Sunday  afternoon  (November 
13,  1664),  he  spent  at  home  with  his  wife,  '^getting 
a  speech  out  of  Hamlet,  'To  be  or  not  to  be,'  without 
book."  He  proved,  indeed,  his  singular  admira- 
tion for  those  familiar  Unes  in  a  manner  which  I 
believe  to  be  unique.  He  set  them  to  music,  and 
the  notes  are  extant  in  a  book  of  manuscript  music 
in  his  library  at  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge.  The 
piece  is  a  finely-elaborated  recitative  fully  equal  to 
the  requirements  of  grand  opera.  The  composer 
gives  intelligent  and  dignified  expression  to  every 
word  of  the  soliloqu}^  Very  impressive  is  the  modu- 
lation of  the  musical  accompaniment  to  the  lines — 

To  die,  to  sleep! 
To  sleep,  perchance  to  dream!  ay,  there's  the  rub. 

It  is  possible  that  the  cadences  of  this  musical  render- 
ing of  Hamlet's  speech  preserve  some  echo  of  the 
intonation  of  the  great  actor,  Betterton,  whose  per- 
formance evoked  in  Pepys  lasting  adoration. ^ 

It  goes  without  saying  that,  for  the  full  enjoy- 

^  Sir  Frederick  Bridge,  by  permission  of  the  Master  and  Fel- 
lows of  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,,  caused  this  setting  of 
"  To  be  or  not  to  be  "  (which  bears  no  composer's  signature)  to 
be  transcribed  from  the  manuscript,  and  he  arranged  the  piece 
to  be  sung  at  the  meeting  of  the  Pepys  Club  on  November  30, 
1905.    Sir  Frederick  Bridge  believes  Pepys  to  be  the  composer. 


BETTERTON'S  RENDERING  OF  HAMLET    101 

ment  of  a  performance  of  Hamlet  by  botb  cultured 
and  uncultured  spectators,  acting  of  supreme  qi-iali'ty' 
is  needful.  Luckily  for  Pepys,  Hamlet  in  his  day 
was  rendered  by  an  actor  who,  according  to  ample 
extant  testimony,  interpreted  the  part  to  perfection. 
Pepys  records  four  performances  of  Hamlet,  with 
Betterton  in  the  title-role  on  each  occasion.  With 
every  performance  Pepys's  enthusiasm  rose.  The 
first  time  he  writes  (August  24,  1661):  ''Saw  the 
play  done  with  scenes  very  well  at  the  Opera,  but 
above  all  Betterton  did  the  Prince's  part  beyond 
imagination."  On  the  third  occasion  (May  28, 
1663),  the  rendering  gave  him  ''fresh  reason  never 
to  think  enough  of  Betterton."  On  the  last  occa- 
sion (August  31,  1668)  he  was  "mightily  pleased," 
but  above  all  wdth  Betterton,  "the  best  part,  I 
believe,  that  ever  man  acted." 

Hamlet  was  one  of  the  most  popular  plays  of 
Pepys.'s  day,  mainly  owdng  to  Betterton's  extraor- 
dinarv^  faculty.  The  history  of  the  impersonation 
presents  numerous  points  of  the  deepest  interest. 
The  actor  was  originally  coached  in  the  part  by 
D'Avenant.  The  latter  is  said  to  have  derived  hints 
for  the  rendering  from  an  old  actor,  Joseph  Taylor, 
who  had  played  the  role  in  Shakespeare's  own  day, 
and  had  been  instructed  in  it  by  the  dramatist  him- 
seK.  This  tradition  gives  additional  value  to  Pepys's 
musical  setting  in  recitative  of  the  "To  be  or  not 
to  be"  soliloquy.  If  we  accept  the  reasonable 
theory  that  that  piece  of  music  preserves  something 
of  the  cadences  of  Betterton's  enunciation,  it  is  no 
extravagance  to  suggest  that  a  note  here  or  there 
enshrines  the  modulation  of  the  voice  of  Shake- 
speare  himself.     For   there   is   the   likelihood   that 


102  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

the  dramatist  was  Betterton's  instructor  at  no 
rpore- than;  two,  removes.  Only  the  Ups  of  D'Aven- 
ant,  Shakespeare's  godson,  and  of  Taylor,  Shake- 
speare's acting  colleague,  intervened  between  the 
dramatist  and  the  Hamlet  of  Pepys's  diary.  Those 
alone,  who  have  heard  the  musical  setting  of  ''To 
be  or  not  to  be"  adequately  rendered,  are  in  a 
position  to  reject  this  hypothesis  altogether. 

Among  seventeenth  century  critics  there  was 
unanimous  agreement — a  rare  thing  among  dramatic 
critics  of  any  period — as  to  the  merits  of  Betterton's 
performance.  In  regard  to  his  supreme  excellence, 
men  of  the  different  mental  calibre  of  Sir  Richard 
Steele,  Colley  Gibber,  and  Nicholas  Rowe,  knew  no 
difference  of  opinion.  According  to  Gibber,  Bet- 
terton  invariably  preserved  the  happy  ''medium 
between  mouthing  and  meaning  too  little";  he  held 
the  attention  of  the  audience  by  "a  tempered  spirit," 
not  by  mere  vehemence  of  voice.  His  solemn, 
trembling  voice  made  the  Ghost  equally  terrible  to 
the  spectator  and  to  himself.  Another  critic  relates 
that  when  Betterton's  Hamlet  saw  the  Ghost  in  his 
mother's  chamber,  the  actor  turned  as  pale  as  his 
neckcloth;  every  joint  of  his  body  seemed  to  be  af- 
fected with  a  tremor  inexpressible,  and  the  audience 
shared  his  astonishment  and  horror.  Nicholas  Rowe 
declared  that  "Betterton  performed  the  part  as  if  it 
had  been  written  on  purpose  for  him,  as  if  the  author 
had  conceived  it  as  he  played  it."  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  any  loftier  commendation  of  a  Shakespearean 
player. 

V 

There  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  which  I  have  enumerated  were  all  seen 


ADAPTATIONS  OF  SHAKESPEARE  103 

by  Pepys  in  authentic  shapes.  Betterton  acted 
Lear,  we  are  positively  informed,  ^'exactly  as  Shake- 
speare wrote  it";  and  at  the  dates  when  Pepys  saw 
Hamlet,  Twelfth  Night,  and  the  rest,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  the  old  texts  had  been  tampered  with. 
The  rage  for  adapting  Shakespeare  to  current 
theatrical  requirements  reached  its  full  tide  after 
the  period  of  Pepys's  diary.  Pepys  witnessed  only 
the  first-fruits  of  that  fantastic  movement.  It 
acquired  its  greatest  luxuriance  later.  The  pioneer 
of  the  great  scheme  of  adaptation  was  Sir  William 
D'Avenant,  and  he  was  aided  in  Pepys's  playgoing 
days  by  no  less  a  personage  than  Dryden.  It  was 
during  the  succeeding  decade  that  the  scandal, 
fanned  by  the  energies  of  lesser  men,  was  at  its 
unseemly  height. 

No  disrespect  seems  to  have  been  intended  to 
Shakespeare's  memory  by  those  who  devoted  them- 
selves to  these  acts  of  vandalism.  However  difficult 
it  may  be  to  realise  the  fact,  true  admiration  for 
Shakespeare's  genius  seems  to  have  flourished  in 
the  breasts  of  all  the  adapters,  great  and  small. 
D'Avenant,  whose  earliest  poetic  production  was-  a 
pathetic  elegy  on  the  mighty  dramatist,  never  ceased 
to  write  or  speak  of  him  with  the  most  affectionate 
respect.  Dryden,  who  was  first  taught  by  D'Aven- 
ant 'Ho  admire"  Shakespeare's  work,  attests  in  his 
critical  writings  a  reverence  for  its  unique  excel- 
lence, which  must  satisfy  the  most  enthusiastic 
worshipper.  The  same  temper  characterises  refer- 
ences to  Shakespeare  on  the  part  of  dramatists 
of  the  Restoration,  who  brought  to  the  adaptation 
of  Shakespeare  abilities  of  an  order  far  inferior  to 
those  of  Dryden  or  of  D'Avenant.     Nahum  Tate, 


104  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

one  of  the  least  respected  names  in  English  htera- 
ture,  was  one  of  the  freest  adapters  of  Shakespearean 
drama  to  the  depraved  taste  of  the  da}^  Yet  even 
he  assigned  to  the  master  playwright  mirivalled 
insight  into  the  darkest  mysteries  of  human  nature, 
and  an  absolute  mastery  of  the  faculty  of  accurate 
characterisation.  For  once,  Tate's  Hterar\^  judg- 
ment must  go  unquestioned.         «  •     r- 

It  was  no  feeling  of  disrespect  or  of  dislike  for 
Shakespeare's  wc^rk-r-it  \^s  l^e'^thaitge  that  was 
taking  place  in  the  methods  of  theatrical  represen- 
tation, which  mainly  incited  the  Shmespearean 
adapters  of  the  Restoration  to  their  benighted 
labours.  Shakespeare  had  been  acted  without  scen- 
ery or  musical  accompaniment.  As  soon  as  scenic 
machinery  and  music  had  become  ordinary  acces- 
sories of  the  stage,  it  seemed  to  theatrical  managers 
almost  a  point  of  honour  to  fit  Shakespearean  drama 
to  the  new  conditions.  To  abandon  him  altogether 
was  sacrilege.  Yet  the  mutation  of  pubHc  taste 
offered,  as  the  only  alternative  to  his  abandonment, 
the  obligation  of  bestowing  on  his  work  every  me- 
chanical advantage,  every  tawdry  ornament  in  the 
latest  mode. 

Pepys  fully  approved  the  innovations,  and  two  of 
the  earliest  of  Shakespearean  adaptations  won  his 
unqualified  eulogy.  These  were  D'Avenant's  recon- 
structions of  The  Tempest  and  Macbeth.  D'Avenant 
had  convinced  himself  that  both  plays  readily  lent 
themselves  to  spectacle;  they  would  repay  the  em- 
bellishments of  ballets,  new  songs,  new  music, 
coloured  lights,  and  flying  machines.  Reinforced 
by  these  charms  of  novelty,  the  old  pieces  might 
enjoy   an   everlasting   youth.     No   spectator   more 


ADAPTATION  OF  THE  TEMPEST  105 

ardently  applauded  such  bastard  sentiment  than 
the  playgoing  Pepys. 

Of  the  two  pieces,  the  text  of  Macbeth  was 
abbreviated,  but  otherwise  the  alterations  in  the 
blank- verse  speeches  were  comparatively  slight.  Ad- 
ditional songs  were  provided  for  the  Witches,  to- 
gether with  much  capering  in  the  air.  Music  was 
specially  written  by  Matthew  Locke.  The  liberal 
introduction  of  song  and  dance  rendered  the  piece, 
in  Pepys's  strange  phrase,  ''a  most  excellent  play 
for  variety."  He  saw  D'Avenant's  version  of  it  no 
less  than  eight  times,  with  ever-increasing  enjoy- 
ment. He  generously  praised  the  clever  combina- 
tion of  ''a  deep  tragedy  mth  a  divertissement." 
He  detected  no  incongruity  in  the  amalgamation. 
'^ Though  I  have  seen  it  often,"  he  wrote  later,  ''yet 
is  it  one  of  the  best  plays  for  a  stage,  and  for  variety 
of  dancing  and  music,  that  ever  I  saw." 

The  Tempest,  the  other  adapted  play,  which  is 
prominent  in  Pepys's  diary,  underwent  more  drastic 
revision.  Here  D'Avenant  had  the  co-operation  of 
Dryden;  and  no  intelligent  reader  can  hesitate  to 
affirm  that  the  ingenuity  of  these  worthies  ruined 
this  splendid  manifestation  of  poetic  fancy  and  in- 
sight. It  is  only  fair  to  Dryden  to  add  that  he  dis- 
claimed any  satisfaction  in  his  share  in  the  outrage. 
The  first  edition  of  the  barbarous  revision  was  first 
published  in  1670,  after  D'Avenant's  death,  and 
Dryden  wrote  a  preface,  in  which  he  prudently 
remarked:  ''I  do  not  set  a  value  on  anj^thing  I 
have  written  in  this  play  but  [i.e.,  except]  out  of 
gratitude  to  the  memory  of  Sir  WiUiam  Davenant, 
who  did  me  the  honour  to  join  me  with  him  in  the 
alteration  of  it." 


106  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

The  numerous  additions,  for  which  the  dis- 
tinguished coadjutors  are  responsible,  reek  with 
mawkish  sentimentality,  inane  vapidity,  or  vulgar 
buffooner}^  Most  of  the  leading  characters  are 
duplicated  or  triplicated.  Miranda  has  a  sister, 
Dorinda,  who  is  repellently  coquettish.  This  new 
creation  finds  a  lover  in  another  new  character,  a 
brainless  youth,  Hippolito,  who  has  never  before 
seen  a  woman.  Caliban  becomes  the  most  sordid  of 
clowns,  and  is  allotted  a  sister,  Milcha,  who  apes 
his  coarse  buffoonery.  Ariel,  too,  is  given  a  female 
associate,  Sycorax,  together  with  many  attendants. 
The  sailors  are  increased  in  number,  and  a  phalanx 
of  dancing  devils  join  in  their  antics. 

But  the  chief  feature  of  the  revived  Tempest  was 
the  music,  the  elaborate  scener}^,  and  the  scenic 
mechanism.  1  There  was  an  orchestra  of  twenty-four 
violins  in  front  of  the  stage,  with  harpsichords  and 
'Hheorbos"   to  accompany  the  voices;  new  songs 

^  The  Dryden-D'Avenant  perversion  of  The  Tempest  which 
Pepys  witnessed  underwent  a  further  deterioration  in  1673,  when 
Thomas  Shadwell,  poet  laureate,  to  the  immense  delight  of  the 
playgoing  public,  rendered  the  piece's  metamorphosis  into  an 
opera  more  complete.  In  167^  the  Dryden-DAvenant  edition 
was  reissued,  with  Shadwell's  textual  and  scenic  amplification, 
although  no  indication  was  given  on  the  title-page  or  elsewhere 
of  his  share  in  the  venture.  Contemporary  histories  of  the  stage 
make  frequent  reference  to  Shadwell's  "  Opera  "  of  The  Tempest; 
but  no  copy  was  known  to  be  extant  imtil  Sir  Ernest  Clarke  proved, 
in  The  Athenceum  for  25th  August  1906,  that  the  second  and 
later  editions  of  the  Dryden-D'Avenant  version  embodied  Shad- 
well's operatic  embellishments,  and  are  copies  of  what  was  known 
in  theatrical  circles  of  the  day  as  Shadwell's  "  Opera."  Shad- 
well's stage-directions  are  more  elaborate  than  those  of  Dryden 
and  D'Avenant,  and  there  are  other  minor  innovations;  but  there 
is  little  difference  in  the  general  design  of  the  two  versions.  Shad- 
well  merely  bettered  Dryden's  and  D'Avenant's  instructions. 


SCENERY  OF  THE  TEMPEST  107 

were  dispersed  about  the  piece  with  unsparing  hand. 
The  curious  new  '^Echo"  song  in  Act  III. — a  duet 
between  Ferdinand  and  Ariel — was  deemed  by 
Pepys  to  be  so  '' mighty  pretty"  that  he  requested 
the  composer — Bannister — to  ^' prick  him  down  the 
notes."  Many  times  did  the  audience  shout  with 
joy  as  Ariel,  with  a  covps  de  ballet  in  attendance, 
winged  his  flight  to  the  roof  of  the  stage. 

The  scenic  devices  which  distinguished  the  Resto- 
ration production  of  The  Tempest  have,  indeed, 
hardly  been  excelled  for  ingenuity  in  our  own  day. 
The  arrangements  for  the  sinking  of  the  ship  in  the 
first  scene  would  do  no  discredit  to  the  spectacular 
magnificence  of  the  London  stage  of  our  own  day. 
The  scene  represented  ''a  thick  cloudy  sky,  a  very 
rocky  coast,  and  a  tempestuous  sea  in  perpetual 
agitation."  '^This  tempest,"  according  to  the  stage- 
directions,  ''has  many  dreadful  objects  in  it;  several 
spirits  in  horrid  shapes  flying  down  among  the 
sailors,  then  rising  and  crossing  in  the  air;  and  when 
the  ship  is  sinking,  the  whole  house  is  darkened  and 
a  shower  of  fire  falls  upon  the  vessel.  This  is  ac- 
companied by  lightning  and  several  claps  of  thunder 
till  the  end  of  the  storm."  The  stage-manager's 
notes  proceed: — ''In  the  midst  of  the  shower  of  fire, 
the  scene  changes.  The  cloudy  sky,  rocks,  and  sea 
vanish,  and  when  the  fights  return,  discover  that 
beautiful  part  of  the  island,  which  was  the  habitation 
of  Prospero :  'tis  composed  of  three  walks  of  cypress 
trees ;  each  side-walk  leads  to  a  cave,  in  one  of  which 
Prospero  keeps  his  daughter,  in  the  other  Hippolito 
(the  interpolated  character  of  the  man  who  has  never 
seen  a  woman) .  The  middle  walk  is  of  great  depth, 
and  leads  to  an  open  part  of  the  island."     Every 


108  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

scene  of  the  play  was  framed  with  equal  elaborate- 
ness. 

Pepys's  comment  on  The  Tempest,  when  he  first 
witnessed  its  production  in  such  magnificent  con- 
ditions, runs  thus: — ''The  play  has  no  great  wvi  but 
yet  good  above  ordinary  plays."  Pepys  subse- 
quently, how^ever,  saw  the  piece  no  less  than  five 
times,  and  the  effect  of  the  music,  dancing,  and 
scenery,  steadily  grew  upon  him.  On  his  second 
visit  he  wTote: — ''Saw  The  Tempest  again,  which  is 
very  pleasant,  and  full  of  so  good  variety,  that  I 
cannot  be  more  pleased  almost  in  a  comedy.  Only 
the  seamen's  part  a  little  too  tedious."  Finally, 
Pepys  praised  the  richly-embellished  Tempest  with- 
out any  sort  of  reserve,  and  took  "pleasure  to  learn 
the  tune  of  the  seamen's  dance." 

Other  adaptations  of  Shakespeare,  which  followed 
somewhat  less  spectacular  methods  of  barbarism, 
roused  in  Pepj^s  smaller  enthusiasm.  The  Rivals,  a 
version  by  D'Avenant  of  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen 
(the  joint  production  of  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare), 
was  judged  by  Pepys  to  be  "no  excellent  piece," 
though  he  appreciated  the  new  songs,  w^hich  included 
the  familiar  "My  lodging  is  on  the  cold  ground," 
Tvdth  music  by  Matthew  Locke.  Pepys  formed  a 
higher  opinion  of  D'Avenant's  liberally-altered  ver- 
sion of  Measure  for  Measure,  which  the  adapter 
called  The  Law  against  Lovers,  and  into  w^hich  he 
introduced,  with  grotesque  effect,  the  characters  of 
Beatrice  and  Benedick  from  Much  Ado  about  Noth- 
ing. But  it  is  more  to  Pepys's  credit  that  he  be- 
stowed a  very  quahfied  approval  on  an  execrable 
adaptation  by  the  actor  Lacy  of  The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew.     Here  the  hero,  Petruchio,  is  overshadowed 


PEPYSIAN   AND   MODERN  IVIETHODS         109 

by  a  new  character,  Sawney,  his  Scottish  servant, 
who  speaks  an  unintelHgible  patois.  "  It  hath  some 
very  good  pieces  in  it,"  writes  Pepys,  "  but  generally 
is  but  a  mean  play,  and  the  best  part,  Sawny,  done 
by  Lacy,  hath  not  half  its  life  by  reason  of  the  words, 
I  suppose,  not  being  understood,  at  least  by  me." 

VI 

It  might  be  profitable  to  compare  Pepys's  ex- 
periences as  a  spectator  of  Shakespeare's  plays  on 
the  stage  with  the  opportunities  open  to  playgoers 
at  the  present  moment.  Modern  managers  have 
been  producing  Shakespearean  drama  of  late  with 
great  hberaUty,  and  usually  in  much  splendour. 
Neither  the  points  of  resemblance  between  the 
modern  and  the  Pepysian  methods,  nor  the  points 
of  difference,  are  flattering  to  the  esteem  of  our- 
selves as  a  literature-loving  people.  It  is  true  that 
we  no  longer  garble  our  acting  versions  of  Shake- 
speare. We  are  content  with  abbreviations  of  the 
text,  some  of  which  are  essential,  but  many  of 
which  injure  the  dramatic  perspective,  and  with 
inversion  of  scenes  which  may  or  may  not  be  justi- 
fiable. But,  to  my  mind,  it  is  in  our  large  depend- 
ence on  scenery  that  we  are  following  too  closely 
that  tradition  of  the  Restoration  which  won  the 
wholehearted  approval  of  Pepys.  The  musico-scenic 
method  of  producing  Shakespeare  can  always  count 
on  the  applause  of  the  average  multitude  of  play- 
goers, of  which  Pepys  is  the  ever-living  spokesman. 
It  is  Shakespeare  with  scenic  machinery,  Shakespeare 
with  new  songs,  Shakespeare  with  incidental  music, 
Shakespeare  with  interpolated  ballets,  that  reaches 


110  PEPYS  AND  SHAKESPEARE 

the  heart  of  the  British  pubHc.  If  the  average 
British  playgoer  were  gifted  with  Pepys's  frankness, 
I  have  Uttle  doubt  that  he  would  echo  the  diarist's 
condemnation  of  Shakespeare  in  his  poetic  purity, 
of  Shakespeare  as  the  mere  interpreter  of  human 
nature,  of  Shakespeare  without  flying  machines,  of 
Shakespeare  without  song  and  dance;  he  would 
characterise  imdiluted  Shakespearean  drama  as  ''a 
mean  thing,"  or  the  most  tedious  entertainment  that 
ever  he  was  at  in  his  life. 

But  the  situation  in  Pepys's  day  had,  despite 
all  the  perils  that  menaced  it,  a  saving  grace. 
Great  acting,  inspired  acting,  is  an  essential  con- 
dition to  any  general  appreciation  in  the  theatre 
of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  genius.  However  seduc- 
tive may  be  the  musico  -  scenic  ornamentation, 
Shakespeare  will  never  justly  affect  the  mind  of  the 
average  playgoer  unless  great  or  inspired  actors  are 
at  hand  to  interpret  him.  Luckil}^  for  Pepys,  he 
was  the  contemporary  of  at  least  one  inspired  Shake- 
spearean actor.  The  exaltation  of  spirit  to  which  he 
confesses,  when  he  witnessed  Betterton  in  the  role  of 
Hamlet,  is  proof  that  the  prosaic  multitude  for  whom 
he  speaks  will  always  respond  to  Shakespeare's  magic 
touch  when  genius  wields  the  actor's  wand.  One 
could  wish  nothing  better  for  the  playgoing  public  of 
to-day  than  that  the  spirit  of  Betterton,  Shake- 
speare's guardian  angel  in  the  theatre  of  the  Restor- 
ation, might  renew  its  earthly  career  in  our  own 
time  in  the  person  of  some  contemporary  actor. 


MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN 
DRAMA  1 


Dra:matic  criticism  in  the  daily  press  of  London 
often  resembles  that  method  of  conversation  of  which 
Bacon  wrote  that  it  seeks  ''rather  commendation  of 
wit,  in  being  able  to  hold  argument,  than  of  judg- 
ment, in  discerning  what  is  true."  For  four-and- 
twenty  years,  Mr  F.  R.  Benson  has  directed  an  acting 
company  which  has  achieved  a  reputation  in  Enghsh 
provincial  cities,  in  Ireland,  and  in  Scotland,  by  its 
exclusive  devotion  to  Shakespearean  and  classical 
drama.  Mr  Benson's  visits  to  London  have  been 
rare.  There  he  has  too  often  made  sport  for  the 
journalistic  censors  who  aim  at  ''commendation  of 
wit." 

Even  the  best-intentioned  of  Mr  Benson's  critics 
in  London  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  concentrating 
attention  on  unquestionable  defects  in  Mr  Benson's 
practice,  to  the  neglect  of  the  vital  principles  which 
are  the  justification  of  his  pohcy.  Mr  Benson's 
principles  have  been  largely  ignored  by  the  news- 
papers; but  they  are  not  wisely  disregarded.  They 
are  matters  of  urgent  public  interest.     They  point 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine, 
May,  1900. 

Ill 


112   MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMA 

the  right  road  to  the  salvation  of  Shakespearean 
drama  on  the  modern  stage.  They  cannot  be  too 
often  pressed  on  public  notice. 

These,  in  my  view,  are  the  five  points  of  the 
charter  which  Mr  Benson  is  and  has  long  been 
championing  with  a  persistency  which  claims  na- 
tional recognition. 

Firstly,  it  is  to  the  benefit  of  the  nation  that 
Shakespeare's  plays  should  be  acted  constantly  and 
in  their  variety. 

Secondly,  a  theatrical  manager  who  undertakes  to 
produce  Shakespearean  drama  should  change  his 
programme  at  frequent  intervals,  and  should  permit 
no  long  continuous  run  of  any  single  play. 

Thirdly,  all  the  parts,  whatever  their  significance, 
should  be  entrusted  to  exponents  who  have  been 
trained  in  the  delivery  of  blank  verse,  and  have 
gained  some  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  range 
of  Shakespearean  drama. 

Fourthly,  no  play  should  be  adapted  by  the 
manager  so  as  to  give  greater  prominence  than  the 
text  invites  to  any  single  role. 

Fifthly,  the  scenic  embellishments  should  be 
simple  and  inexpensive,  and  should  be  subordinated 
to  the  dramatic  interest. 

There  is  no  novelty  in  these  principles.  The 
majority  of  them  were  accepted  unhesitatingly  in 
the  past  by  Betterton,  Garrick,  Edmund  Kean,  the 
Kembles,  and  notably  by  Phelps.  They  are  recog- 
nised principles  to-day  in  the  leading  theatres  of 
France  and  Germany.  But  by  some  vagary  of  fate 
or  public  taste  they  have  been  reckoned  in  London, 
for  a  generation  at  any  rate,  to  be  out  of  date. 

In  the  interest  of  the  manager,  the  actor,  and 


MR  BENSON'S  PRINCIPLES  113 

the  student,  a  return  to  the  discarded  methods  has 
become,  in  the  opinion  of  an  influential  section  of 
the  educated  pubhc,  imperative.  Mr  Benson  is  the 
only  manager  of  recent  date  to  inscribe  boldly  and 
continuously  on  his  banner  the  old  watchwords: 
''Shakespeare  and  the  National  Drama,"  '^ Short 
Runs,"  ''No  Stars,"  "All-round  Competence,"  and 
"Unostentatious  Setting."  What  better  title  could 
be  offered  to  the  support  and  encouragement  of  the 
intelhgent  playgoer? 

II 

A  constant  change  of  programme,  such  as  the 
old  methods  of  the  stage  require,  causes  the  present 
generation  of  London  playgoers,  to  whom  it  is 
unfamiliar,  a  good  deal  of  perplexity.  Londoners 
have  grown  accustomed  to  estimate  the  merits  of  a 
play  by  the  number  of  performances  which  are  given 
of  it  in  uninterrupted  succession.  They  have  for- 
gotten how  mechanical  an  exercise  of  the  lungs  and 
Hmbs  acting  easily  becomes;  how  frequent  repetition 
of  poetic  speeches,  even  in  the  most  competent 
mouths,  robs  the  lines  of  their  poetic  temper. 

Numbness  of  intellect,  rigidity  of  tone,  artificiality 
of  expression,  are  fatal  alike  to  the  enunciation  of 
Shakespearean  language  and  to  the  interpretation  of 
Shakespearean  character.  The  system  of  short  runs, 
of  the  nightly  alterations  of  the  play,  such  as  Mr 
Benson  has  revived,  is  the  only  sure  preservative 
against  maladies  so  fatal. 

Hardly  less  important  is  Mr  Benson's  new-old 
principle  of  "casting"  a  play  of  Shakespeare.  Not 
only  in  the  leading  roles  of  Shakespeare's  master- 
pieces,   but   in   subordinate   parts   throughout   the 


114   MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMA 

range  of  his  work,  the  highest  abihties  of  the  actor 
can  find  some  scope  for  employment.  A  competent 
knowledge  of  the  poet's  complete  work  is  needed  to 
bring  this  saving  truth  home  to  those  who  are  en- 
gaged in  presenting  Shakespearean  drama  on  the 
stage.  An  actor  hardly  realises  the  real  force  of  the 
doctrine  until  he  has  had  experience  of  the  potential- 
ities of  a  series  of  the  smaller  characters  by  making 
practical  endeavours  to  interpret  them.  Adequate 
opportunities  of  the  kind  are  only  accessible  to 
members  of  a  permanent  company,  whose  energies 
are  absorbed  in  the  production  of  the  Shakespearean 
drama  constantly  and  in  its  variety,  and  whose 
programme  is  untrammelled  by  the  poisonous  sys- 
tem of  ''long  runs."  Shakespearean  actors  should 
drink  deep  of  the  Pierian  spring.  They  should  be 
graduates  in  Shakespeare's  university;  and,  unlike 
graduates  of  other  universities,  they  should  master 
not  merely  formal  knowledge,  but  a  flexible  power 
of  using  it. 

Mr  Benson's  company  is,  I  believe,  the  only  one 
at  present  in  existence  in  England  which  confines 
almost  all  its  efforts  to  the  acting  of  Shakespeare. 
In  the  course  of  its  twenty-four  years'  existence  its 
members  have  interpreted  in  the  theatre  no  less  than 
thirty  of  Shakespeare's  plays. ^     The  natural  result 

■^  Mr  Benson,  writing  to  me  on  13th  January  19O6,  gives  the 
following  list  of  plays  by  Shakespeare  which  he  has  produced: — 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  As  You  Like  It,  The  Comedy  of  Errors, 
Coriolanus,  Hamlet,  Henry  IV.  (Parts  1  and  2),  Henry  V., 
Henry  VI.  (Parts  1,  2,  and  3),  Henry  VIII.,  Julius  Ccesar,  King 
John,  King  Lear,  Macbeth,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Much  Ado 
About  Nothing,  Othello,  Pericles,  Richard  II.,  Richard  III., 
Romeo   and  Juliet,   The   Taming  of   the   Shrew,   The   Tempest, 


SHAKESPEARE'S  MINOR  ROLES  115 

is  that  Mr  Benson  and  his  colleagues  have  learned  in 
practice  the  varied  calls  that  Shakespearean  drama 
makes  upon  actors'  capacities. 

Members  of  Mr  Benson's  company  have  made 
excellent  use  of  their  opportunities.  An  actor,  like 
the  late  Frank  Rodney,  who  could  on  one  night 
competently  portray  Bolingbroke  in  Richard  11.  and 
on  the  following  night  the  clown  Feste  in  Twelfth 
Night  with  equal  effect,  clearly  realised  something  of 
the  virtue  of  Shakespearean  versatility.  Mr  Ben- 
son's leading  comedian,  Mr  Weir,  whose  power  of 
presenting  Shakespeare's  humorists  shows,  besides 
native  gifts,  the  advantages  that  come  of  experienced 
study  of  the  dramatist,  not  only  interprets,  in  the 
genuine  spirit,  great  roles  like  Falstaff  and  Touch- 
stone, but  gives  the  truest  possible  significance  to 
the  comparatively  unimportant  roles  of  the  First 
Gardener  in  Richard  II.  and  Grumio  in  The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew. 

Nothing  could  be  more  grateful  to  a  student  of 
Shakespeare  than  the  manner  in  which  the  small 
part  of  John  of  Gaunt  was  played  by  Mr  Warburton 
in  Mr  Benson's  production  of  Richard  II.  The  part 
includes  the  glorious  panegyric  of  England  which 
comes  from  the  lips  of  the  dying  man,  and  must 
challenge  the  best  efforts  of  every  actor  of  ambition 

Timon  of  Athens,  Twelfth  Night,  and  A  Winter's  Tale.  Phelps's 
record  only  exceeded  Mr  Benson's  by  one.  He  produced  thirty-one 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  all,  but  he  omitted  Richard  II.,  and  the 
three  parts  of  Henry  VI.,  which  Mr  Benson  has  acted,  while  he 
included  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Cymbeline,  and  Measure  for  Measure, 
which  Mr  Benson,  so  far,  has  eschewed.  Mr  Phelps  and  Mr 
Benson  are  at  one  in  avoiding  Titus  Andronicus  and  Troilus  and 
Cressida. 


116  MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMA 

and  self-respect.  But  in  the  mouth  of  an  actor  who 
lacks  knowledge  of  the  true  temper  of  Shakespearean 
drama,  this  speech  is  certain  to  be  mistaken  for  a 
detached  declamation  of  patriotism — an  error  which 
ruins  its  dramatic  significance.  As  Mr  Warburton 
delivered  it,  one  listened  to  the  despairing  cry  of  a 
feeble  old  man  roused  for  a  moment  from  the  leth- 
argy of  sickness  by  despair  at  the  thought  that  the 
great  country  he  loved  was  in  peril  of  decay  through 
the  selfish  and  frivolous  temper  of  its  ruler.  Instead 
of  a  Chauvinist  manifesto  defiantly  declaimed  under 
the  limelight,  there  was  offered  us  the  quiet  pathos  of 
a  dying  patriot's  lament  over  his  beloved  country's 
misfortunes — an  oracular  warning  from  a  death- 
stricken  tongue,  foreshadowing  with  rare  solemnity 
and  dramatic  irony  the  violent  doom  of  the  reckless 
worker  of  the  mischief.  Any  other  conception  of 
the  passage,  any  conscious  endeavour  to  win  a  round 
of  applause  by  elocutionary  display,  would  disable 
the  actor  from  doing  justice  to  the  great  and  sadly 
stirring  utterance.  The  right  note  could  only  be 
sounded  by  one  who  was  acclimatised  to  Shake- 
spearean drama,  and  had  recognised  the  wealth  of 
significance  to  be  discovered  and  to  be  disclosed 
(with  due  artistic  restraint)  in  Shakespeare's  minor 
characters. 

Ill 

The  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the  control  of  a 
trained  school  of  Shakespearean  actors  were  dis- 
played very  conspicuously  when  Mr  Benson  under- 
took six  years  ago  the  heroic  task  of  performing 
the  play  of  Hamlet,  as  Shakespeare  wrote  it,  without 
any  abbreviation.     Hamlet  is  the  longest  of  Shake- 


HAMLET  UNABRIDGED  117 

speare's  plays;  it  reaches  a  total  of  over  3900  lines. 
It  is  thus  some  900  Hnes  longer  than  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  which  of  all  Shakespeare's  plays  most 
nearly  approaches  its  length.  Consequently  it  is  a 
tradition  of  the  stage  to  cut  the  play  of  Hamlet  by 
the  omission  of  more  than  a  third.  Hamlet's  part 
is  usually  retained  almost  in  its  entirety,  but  the 
speeches  of  every  other  character  are  seriously  cur- 
tailed. Mr  Benson  ventured  on  the  bold  innova- 
tion of  giving  the  play  in  fuU.^ 

Onl}^  he  who  has  witnessed  the  whole  play  on  the 
stage  can  fully  appreciate  its  dramatic  capabiHties. 
It  is  obvious  that,  in  whatever  shape  the  play  of 
Hamlet  is  produced  in  the  theatre,  its  success  must 
always  be  primarily  due  to  the  overpowering  fascin- 
ation exerted  on  the  audience  by  the  character  of 
the  hero.  In  every  conceivable  circumstance  the 
young  prince  must  be  the  centre  of  attraction. 
Nevertheless,  no  graver  injury  can  be  done  the  play 
as  an  acting  drama  than  by  treating  it  as  a  one-part 
piece.  The  accepted  method  of  shortening  the- 
tragedy  by  reducing  every  part,  except  that  of 
Hamlet,  is  to  distort  Shakespeare's  whole  scheme, 
to  dislocate  or  obscure  the  whole  action.  The  pre- 
dominance of  Hamlet  is  exaggerated  at  the  expense 
of  the  dramatist's  artistic  purpose. 

^  The  performance  occupied  nearly  six  hours.  One  half  was 
given  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  other  half  in  the  evening  of  the 
same  day,  with  an  interval  of  an  hour  and  a  half  between  the 
two  sections.  Should  the  performance  be  repeated,  I  would  rec- 
ommend, in  the  interests  of  busy  men  and  women,  that  the  whole 
play  be  rendered  at  a  single  sitting,  which  might  be  timed  to 
open  at  a  somewhat  earlier  hour  in  the  evening  than  is  now 
customary,  and  might,  if  need  be,  close  a  little  later.  There 
should  be  no  difficulty  in  restricting  the  hours  occupied  by  the 
performance  to  four  and  a  half. 


118    MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMA 

To  realise  completely  the  motives  of  Hamlet's 
conduct,  and  the  process  of  his  fortunes,  not  a  single 
utterance  from  the  lips  of  the  King,  Polonius,  or 
Laertes  can  be  spared.  In  ordinary  acting  versions 
these  three  parts  sink  into  insignificance.  It  is 
only  in  the  full  text  that  they  assume  their  just 
and  illuminating  rank  as  Hamlet's  foils. 

The  King  rises  into  a  character  almost  of  the  first 
class.  He  is  a  villain  of  unfathomable  infamy,  but 
his  cowardly  fear  of  the  discovery  of  his  crimes,  his 
desperate  pursuit  of  the  consolations  of  religion,  the 
quick  ingenuity  with  which  he  plots  escape  from  the 
inevitable  retribution  that  dogs  his  misdeeds,  excite 
— in  the  full  text  of  the  play — an  interest  hardly  less 
intense  than  those  wistful  musings  of  the  storm- 
tossed  soul  which  stay  his  nephew's  avenging  hand. 

Similarly,  Hamlet's  incisive  wit  and  honesty  are 
brought  into  the  highest  possible  relief  b}^  the 
restoration  to  the  feebly  guileful  Polonius  of  the 
speeches  of  which  he  has  long  been  deprived. 
Among  the  reinstated  scenes  is  that  in  which  the 
meddlesome  dotard  teaches  his  servant  Reynaldo 
modes  of  espionage  that  shall  detect  the  moral  lapses 
of  his  son  Laertes  in  Paris.  The  recovered  episode 
is  not  only  admirable  comedy,  but  it  gives  new 
vividness  to  Polonius's  maudlin  egotism  which  is 
responsible  for  many  windings  of  the  tragic  plot. 

The  story  is  simplified  at  all  points  by  such 
amplifications  of  the  contracted  version  which  holds 
the  stage.  The  events  are  evolved  with  unsuspected 
naturalness.  The  hero's  character  gains  by  the  ex- 
pansion of  its  setting.  One  downright  error  which 
infects  the  standard  abridgement  is  wholly  avoided. 
Opheha  is  dethroned.     It  is  recognised  that  she  is 


A  SCHOOL  FOR  ACTORS  119 

not  entitled  to  share  with  Hamlet  the  triumphal 
honours  of  the  action.  Weak,  insipid,  destitute  of 
all  force  of  character,  she  deserves  an  insignificant 
place  in  Shakespeare's  gallery  of  heroines.  Hamlet's 
mother  merits  as  much  or  more  attention.  At  any 
rate,  there  is  no  justification  for  reducing  the  Queen's 
part  in  order  to  increase  Ophelia's  prominence.  Such 
distortions  are  impossible  in  the  production  of  the 
piece  in  its  entirety.  Throughout  Hamlet,  in  the  full 
authorised  text,  the  artistic  balance  hangs  true. 
Mr  Benson  recognised  that  dominant  fact,  and  con- 
trived to  illustrate  it  on  the  stage.  IVo  higher 
commendation  could  be  allowed  a  theatrical  mana- 
ger or  actor. 

IV 

Much  else  could  be  said  of  Mr  Benson's  princi- 
ples, and  of  his  praiseworthy  energy  in  seeking  to 
familiarise  the  playgoer  with  Shakespearean  drama 
in  all  its  fulness  and  variety,  but  only  one  other 
specific  feature  of  his  method  needs  mention  here. 
Perhaps  the  most  con\'incing  proof  that  he  has  given 
of  the  value  of  his  principles  to  the  countrj^'s  dramatic 
art  is  his  success  in  the  training  of  actors  and 
actresses.  Of  late  it  is  his  company  that  has  sup- 
plied the  great  London  actor-managers  with  their 
ablest  recruits.  Nearly  all  the  best  performers  of 
secondary'  roles  and  a  few  of  the  best  performers  of 
primary  roles  in  the  leading  London  theatres  are  Mr 
Benson's  pupils.  Their  admission  to  the  great  Lon- 
don companies  is  raising  the  standard  of  acting  in 
the  Metropolis.  The  marked  efficiency  of  these  new- 
comers is  due  to  a  system  w^hich  is  inconsistent 


120   MR  BENSON  AND  SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMA 

with  any  of  the  accepted  principles  of  current 
theatrical  enterprise  in  London.  Mr  Benson's  dis- 
ciples mainl}^  owe  their  efficiency  to  long  asso- 
ciation with  a  permanent  compan}^  controlled  b}^  a 
manager  who  seeks,  single-mindedly,  what  he  holds 
to  be  the  interests  of  dramatic  art.  The  many- 
headed  public  learns  its  lessons  very  slowly,  and 
sometimes  neglects  them  altogether.  It  has  been 
reluctant  to  recognise  the  true  significance  of  Mr 
Benson's  work.  But  the  intelligent  onlooker  knows 
that  he  is  marching  along  the  right  road,  in  intelligent 
conformity  with  the  best  teaching  of  the  past. 

Thirty  years  ago  a  meeting  took  place  at  the 
Mansion  House  to  discuss  the  feasibihty  of  founding 
a  State  theatre  in  London,  a  project  which  was 
not  realised.  The  most  memorable  incident  which 
was  associated  with  the  Mansion  House  meeting  was 
a  speech  of  the  theatrical  manager  Phelps,  w^ho 
argued,  amid  the  enthusiastic  plaudits  of  his  hearers, 
that  it  was  in  the  highest  interests  of  the  nation 
that  the  Shakespearean  drama  should  continuously 
occupy  the  stage.  '^I  maintain,"  Phelps  said,  ''from 
the  experience  of  eighteen  years,  that  the  perpetual 
iteration  of  Shakespeare's  words,  if  nothing  more, 
going  on  daily  for  so  many  months  of  the  year,  m.ust 
and  would  produce  a  great  effect  upon  the  public 
mind."  No  man  or  woman  of  sense  wdll  to-day 
gainsay  the  wisdom  of  this  utterance;  but  it  is  need- 
ful for  the  public  to  make  greater  exertion  than  they 
have  made  of  late  if  ''the  perpetual  iteration  of 
Shakespeare's  words"  in  the  theatre  is  to  be  per- 
manently secured. 

Mr  Benson's  efforts  constitute  the  best  organised 
endeavour  to  reahse  Phelps's  ambition  since  Phelps 


MR  BENSON'S  SERVICE  TO  SHAKESPEARE    121 

withdrew  from  management.  Mr  Benson's  scheme 
is  imperfect  in  some  of  its  details ;  in  other  particulars 
it  may  need  revision.  But  he  and  his  associates 
have  planted  their  feet  firmly  on  sure  ground  in  their 
endeavours  to  interpret  Shakespearean  drama  con- 
stantly and  in  its  variety,  after  a  wise  and  well- 
considered  system  and  with  a  disinterested  zeal. 
When  every  allowance  has  been  made  for  the  Ben- 
son Company's  shortcomings,  its  achievement  can- 
not be  denied  ^'a  reUsh  of  salvation."  Mr  Benson 
deserves  well  of  those  who  have  faith  in  the  power 
of  Shakespeare's  words  to  widen  the  horizon  of 
men's  intellects  and  emotions.  The  seed  he  has 
sown  should  not  be  suffered  to  decay. 


VI 

THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE  i 


Many  actors,  dramatic  critics,  and  men  in  public  life 
advocate  the  municipal  manner  of  theatrical  enter- 
prise. Their  aim,  as  I  understand  it,  is  to  procure 
the  erection,  and  the  due  working,  of  a  playhouse 
that  shall  serve  in  permanence  the  best  interests 
of  the  literary  or  artistic  drama.  The  municipal 
theatre  is  not  worth  fighting  for,  unless  there  is  a 
reasonable  probability  that  its  establishment  will 
benefit  dramatic  art,  promote  the  knowledge  of 
dramatic  literature,  and  draw  from  the  literary 
drama  and  confer  on  the  public  the  largest  bene- 
ficial influence  which  the  literary  drama  is  capable  of 
distributing. 

None  of  Shakespeare's  countrymen  or  country- 
women can  deny  with  a  good  grace  the  importance  of 
the  drama  as  a  branch  of  art.  None  wilL  seriously 
dispute  that  our  dramatic  literature,  at  any  rate  in 
its  loftiest  manifestation,  has  contributed  as  much 
as  our  armies  or  our  navies  or  our  mechanical  in- 
ventions to  our  reputation  through  the  world. 

There  is  substantial  agreement  among  enlight- 
ened leaders  of  public  opinion  in  all  civilised  coun- 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  the  New  Liberal  Review, 
May,  1902. 
122 


LITERARY  DRAMA  ON  THE  MODERN  STAGE     123 

tries  that  great  drama,  when  fitly  represented  in 
the  theatre,  offers  the  rank  and  file  of  a  nation 
recreation  which  brings  with  it  moral,  intellectual, 
and  spiritual  advantage. 

II 

The  first  question  to  consider  is  whether  in  Eng- 
land the  existing  theatrical  agencies  promote  for  the 
general  good  the  genuine  interests  of  dramatic  art. 
Do  existing  theatrical  agencies  secure  for  the  nation 
all  the  beneficial  influence  that  is  derivable  from  the 
truly  competent  form  of  drama?  If  they  do  this 
sufficiently,  it  is  otiose  and  impertinent  to  entertain 
the  notion  of  creating  any  new  theatrical  agency. 

Theatrical  agencies  of  the  existing  t>^e  have 
never  ignored  the  literary  drama  altogether.  Among 
actor-managers  of  the  past  generation,  Sir  Henry 
Irving  devoted  his  high  abihty  to  the  interpretation 
of  many  species  of  literary  drama — from  that  by 
Shakespeare  to  that  by  Tennyson.  At  leading 
theatres  in  London  there  have  been  produced  in  the 
last  few  years  poetic  dramas  written  in  blank  verse 
on  themes  drawn  from  such  supreme  examples  of 
the  world's  literature  as  Homer's  Odyssey  and 
Dante's  Inferno.  Signs  have  not  been  wanting  of 
public  anxiety  to  acknowledge  with  generosity  these 
and  other  serious  endeavours  in  poetic  drama,  what- 
ever their  precise  degree  of  excellence.  But  such 
premisses  warrant  no  very  large  conclusion.  Two 
or  three  swallows  do  not  make  a  summer.  The 
literary  drama  is  only  welcomed  to  the  London  stage 
at  uncertain  intervals;  most  of  its  life  is  passed  in 
the  wilderness. 


124  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

The  recognition  that  is  given  in  England  to 
hterary  or  poetic  drama,  alike  of  the  past  and 
present,  is  chiefly  notable  for  its  irregularity.  The 
circumstance  may  be  accounted  for  in  various  ways. 
It  is  best  explained  by  the  fact  that  England  is 
the  only  country  in  Europe  in  which  theatrical 
enterprise  is  wholly  and  exclusivel}^  organised  on  a 
capitalist  basis.  No  theatre  in  England  is  worked 
to-day  on  any  but  the  capitalist  principle.  Artistic 
aspiration  may  be  well  alive  in  the  theatrical  pro- 
fession, but  the  custom  and  circumstance  of  capital, 
the  calls  of  the  counting-house,  hamper  the  theatrical 
artist's  freedom  of  action.  The  methods  imposed 
are  dictated  too  exclusively  by  the  mercantile  spirit. 

Many  illustrations  could  be  given  of  the  unceasing 
conflict  which  capitalist  methods  wage  with  artistic 
methods.  One  is  sufficient.  The  commercially  cap- 
italised theatre  is  bound  hand  and  foot  to  the  system 
of  long  runs.  In  no  theatres  of  the  first  class  out- 
side London  and  New  York  is  the  system  known, 
and  even  here  and  in  New  York  it  is  of  comparative- 
ly recent  origin.  But  Londoners  have  grown  so 
accustomed  to  the  S3^stem  that  they  overlook  the 
havoc  which  it  works  on  the  theatre  as  a  home  of 
art.  Both  actor  and  playgoer  suffer  signal  injury 
from  its  effects.  It  limits  the  range  of  drama  which 
is  available  at  our  great  theatres  to  the  rank  and 
file  of  mankind.  Especially  serious  is  the  danger 
to  which  the  unchangeable  programme  exposes 
histrionic  capacity  and  histrionic  intelligence.  The 
actor  is  not  encouraged  to  widen  his  knowledge  of 
the  drama.  His  faculties  are  blunted  by  the  narrow 
monotony  of  his  experience.  Yet  the  capitaUsed 
conditions   of   theatrical   enterprise,    which   are   in 


THE  ACTOR-MANAGER  125 

vogue  in  London  and  New  York,  seem  to  render 
long  runs  imperative.  The  system  of  long  runs  is 
peculiar  to  English-speaking  countries,  where  alone 
theatrical  enterprise  is  altogether  under  the  sway  of 
capital.  It  is  specifically  prohibited  in  the  national 
or  municipal  theatre  of  every  great  foreign  city, 
where  the  interests  of  dramatic  art  enjoy  foremost 
consideration. 

The  artistic  aspiration  of  the  actor-manager  may 
be  set  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  account.  Although 
the  actor-manager  belongs  to  the  ranks  of  the  capi- 
talists (whether  he  be  one  himself  or  dependent  on 
one),  yet  when  he  exercises  supreme  control  of  his 
playhouse,  and  is  moved  by  artistic  feehng,  he  may 
check  many  of  the  evils  that  spring  from  capitalist 
domination.  He  can  partially  neutralise  the  ham- 
pering effect  on  dramatic  art  of  the  merely  com- 
mercial application  of  capital  to  theatrical  enterprise. 

The  actor-manager  system  is  liable  to  impede 
the  progress  of  dramatic  art  through  defects  of 
its  own,  but  its  most  characteristic  defects  are  not 
tarred  with  the  capitaUst  brush.  The  actor-mana- 
ger is  prone  to  over-estimate  the  range  of  his  his- 
trionic power.  He  tends  to  claim  of  right  the  first 
place  in  the  cast  of  every  piece  which  he  produces. 
He  will  consequently  at  times  fill  a  role  for  which  his 
powers  unsuit  him.  If  he  be  wise  enough  to  avoid 
that  error,  he  may  imperil  the  interests  of  dramatic 
art  in  another  fashion ;  he  may  neglect  pieces,  despite 
their  artistic  value,  in  which  he  knows  the  fore- 
most part  to  be  outside  his  scope.  The  actor- 
manager  has  sometimes  undertaken  a  secondarj^ 
role.  But  then  it  often  happens,  not  necessarily  by 
his  deliberate  endeavour,  but  by  the  mere  force  and 


126  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

popularity  of  his  name  among  the  frequenters  of  his 
playhouse,  that  there  is  focussed  on  his  secondary 
part  an  attention  that  it  does  not  intrinsically  merit, 
with  the  result  that  the  artistic  perspective  of  the 
play  is  injured.  A  primary  law  of  dramatic  art 
deprecates  the  constant  preponderance  of  one  actor 
in  a  company.  The  highest  attainable  level  of  ex- 
cellence in  all  the  members  is  the  true  artistic  aim. 
The  dangers  inherent  in  the  ^^star"  principle  of 
the  actor-manager  system  may  be  frankly  admitted, 
but  at  the  same  time  one  should  recognise  the 
system's  possible  advantages.  An  actor-manager 
does  not  usually  arrive  at  his  position  until  his 
career  is  well  advanced  and  he  has  proved  his 
histrionic  capacity.  Versatility  commonly  distin- 
guishes him,  and  he  is  able  to  fill  a  long  series  of 
leading  roles  without  violating  artistic  propriety. 
At  any  rate,  the  actor-manager  who  resolutely 
cherishes  respect  for  art  can  do  much  to  temper 
the  corrupting  influences  of  commercial  capitalism 
in  the  theatrical  world. 

It  is  probabl}^  the  less  needful  to  scrutinise 
closely  the  theoretic  merits  or  demerits  of  the  actor- 
manager  system,  because  the  dominant  principle  of 
current  theatrical  enterprise  in  London  and  America 
renders  most  precarious  the  future  existence  of  that 
system.  The  actor-manager  seems,  at  any  rate, 
threatened  in  London  by  a  new  and  irresistible 
tide  of  capitalist  energy.  Six  or  seven  leading 
theatres  in  London  have  recently  been  brought  under 
the  control  of  an  American  capitalist  who  does 
not  pretend  to  any  but  mercantile  inspiration.  The 
American  capitalist's  first  and  last  aim  is  naturally 
to  secure  the  highest  possible  remuneration  for   his 


THE  AMERICAN  CAPITALIST  127 

invested  capital.  He  is  catholic-minded,  and  has 
no  objection  to  artistic  drama,  provided  he  can 
draw  substantial  profit  from  it.  Material  interests 
alone  have  any  real  meaning  for  him.  If  he  serve 
the  interests  of  art  by  producing  an  artistic  play, 
he  serves  art  by  accident  and  unconsciously:  his 
object  is  to  benefit  his  exchequer.  His  philosophy 
is  unmitigated  utilitarianism.  ^^The  greatest  pleas- 
ure for  the  greatest  number"  is  his  motto.  The 
pleasure  that  carries  farthest  and  brings  round  him 
the  largest  paidng  audiences  is  his  ideal  stock-in- 
trade.  Obviously  pleasure  either  of  the  frivolous  or 
of  the  spectacular  kind  attracts  the  greatest  number 
of  customers  to  his  emporium.  It  is  consequently 
pleasure  of  this  spectacular  or  frivolous  kind  which 
he  habitually  endeavours  to  provide.  It  is  Quixotic 
to  anticipate  much  diminution  in  the  supply  and 
demand  of  either  frivolity  or  spectacle,  both  of 
which  may  furnish  quite  innocuous  pleasure.  But 
each  is  the  antithesis  of  dramatic  art;  and  whatever 
view  one  holds  of  the  methods  of  the  American 
capitalist,  it  is  irrational  to  look  to  him  for  the  in- 
telligent promotion  of  dramatic  art. 

Ill 

From  the  artistic  point  of  view  the  modern 
system  of  theatrical  enterprise  thus  seems  capable 
of  improvement.  If  it  be  incapable  of  general  im- 
provement, it  is  at  least  capable  of  having  a  better 
example  set  it  than  current  modes  can  be  reckoned 
on  to  offer.  The  latter  are  not  Ukely  to  be  dis- 
placed. All  that  can  be  attempted  is  to  create  a 
new  model  at  their  side.  What  is  sought  by  the 
advocates  of  a  municipal  theatre  is  an  institution 


128  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

which  shall  maintain  in  permanence  a  high  artistic 
ideal  of  drama,  and  shall  give  the  pubUc  the  oppor- 
tunity of  permanently  honouring  that  ideal.  Ex- 
isting theatres  whose  programmes  ignore  art  would 
be  unaffected  by  such  a  new  neighbour.  But  ex- 
isting enterprises,  which,  as  far  as  present  conditions 
permit,  reflect  artistic  aspiration,  would  derive  from 
such  an  institution  new  and  steady  encouragement. 

The  interests  of  dramatic  art  can  only  be  served 
w^hole-heartedly  in  a  theatre  organised  on  two  prin- 
ciples which  have  hitherto  been  imrecognised  in 
England.  In  the  first  place,  the  management  should 
acknowledge  some  sort  of  public  obligation  to  make 
the  interests  of  dramatic  art  its  first  motive  of  action. 
In  the  second  place,  the  management  should  be 
relieved  of  the  need  of  seeking  unrestricted  com- 
mercial profits  for  the  capital  that  is  invested  in  the 
venture.  Both  principles  have  been  adopted  with 
successful  results  in  Continental  cities;  but  their 
successful  practice  implies  the  acceptance  by  the 
State,  or  by  a  permanent  local  authority,  of  a  certain 
amount  of  responsibility  in  both  the  artistic  and 
the  financial  directions. 

It  is  foolish  to  blind  oneself  to  commercial  con- 
siderations altogether.  When  the  municipal  theatre 
is  freed  of  the  unimaginative  control  of  private  capi- 
tal seeking  unlimited  profit,  it  is  still  wise  to  require 
a  moderate  return  on  the  expended  outlay.  The 
municipal  theatre  can  only  live  healthily  in  the 
presence  of  a  public  desire  or  demand  for  it,  and  that 
pubhc  desire  or  demand  can  only  be  measured  by  the 
playhouse  receipts.  A  municipal  theatre  would  not 
be  satisfactorily  conducted  if  money  were  merely  lost 
in  it,  or  spent  on  it  without  any  thought  of  the  like- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  A  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE     129 

lihood  of  the  expenditure  proving  remunerative. 
Profits  need  never  be  refused;  but  all  above  a  fixed 
minimum  rate  of  interest  on  the  invested  capital 
should  be  applied  to  the  promotion  of  those  pur- 
poses which  the  municipal  theatre  primarily  exists 
to  serve — to  cheapen,  for  example,  prices  of  ad- 
mission, or  to  improve  the  general  mechanism  behind 
and  before  the  scenes.  No  surplus  profits  should 
reach  the  pocket  of  any  individual  manager  or 
financier. 

IV 

There  is  in  England  a  demand  and  desire  on  the 
part  of  a  substantial  section  of  the  public  for  this 
new  form  of  theatrical  enterprise,  although  its  pre- 
cise dimensions  may  not  be  absolutely  determinable. 
The  question  is  thereby  adapted  for  practical  dis- 
cussion. The  demand  and  desire  have  as  yet 
received  inadequate  recognition,  because  they  have 
not  been  satisfactorily  organised  or  concentrated. 
The  trend  of  an  appreciable  section  of  pubHc  opinion 
in  the  direction  of  a  Hmited  municipalisation  of 
the  theatre  is  visible  in  many  places.  Firstly,  one 
must  take  into  account  the  number  of  small  societies 
w^hich  have  been  formed  of  late  by  enthusiasts  for 
the  exclusive  promotion  of  one  or  other  specific 
branch  of  the  literary  drama — the  EHzabethan 
drama,  the  Norwegian  drama,  the  German  drama. 
Conspicuous  success  has  been  denied  these  societies 
because  their  leaders  tend  to  assert  narrow  sectional 
views  of  the  bases  of  dramatic  art,  or  they  lack  the 
preliminary  training  and  the  influence  which  are 
essential  to  the  efficient  conduct  of  any  public  enter- 
prise.    Many  of  their  experiences  offer  useful  object- 


130  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

lessons  as  to  the  defects  inherent  in  all  narrow  sec- 
tional effort,  however  enthusiastically  inspired.  But 
at  the  same  time  they  testify  to  a  desire  to  introduce 
into  the  current  theatrical  system  more  literary  and 
artistic  principles  than  are  at  present  habitual  to 
it.  They  point  to  the  presence  of  a  zeal — often,  it 
may  be,  misdirected — for  change  or  reform. 

The  experiment  of  Mr  Benson  points  more 
effectively  in  the  same  direction.  A  public-spirited 
champion  of  Shakespeare  and  the  classical  drama, 
he  has  maintained  his  hold  in  the  chief  cities  of 
Ireland,  Scotland,  and  the  English  provinces  for  a 
generation.  Although  for  reasons  that  are  not  hard 
to  seek,  he  has  failed  to  estabUsh  his  position  in 
London,  Mr  Benson's  methods  of  work  have  en- 
abled him  to  render  conspicuous  service  to  the 
London  stage  in  a  manner  which  is  likely  to  facilitate 
reform.  For  many  years  he  has  supplied  the  lead- 
ing London  theatres  with  a  succession  of  trained 
actors  and  actresses.  Graduates  in  Mr  Benson's 
school  can  hardly  fail  to  co-operate  wilUngly  in  any 
reform  of  theatrical  enterprise,  which  is  calculated 
to  develop  the  artistic  capacities  of  the  stage. 

Other  circumstances  are  no  less  promising.  The 
justice  of  the  cry  for  the  due  safeguarding  of  the 
country's  dramatic  art  by  means  of  publicly-organ- 
ised effort  has  been  repeatedly  acknowledged  of  late 
by  men  of  experience  alike  in  dramatic  and  public 
affairs.  In  1898  a  petition  was  presented  to  the 
London  County  Council  requesting  that  body  to 
found  and  endow  a  permanent  opera-house  ''in  order 
to  promote  the  musical  interest  and  refinement  of 
the  public  and  the  advancement  of  the  art  of  music." 
The  petition  bore  the  signatures  of  two  hundred 


THE  TREND  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION  131 

leaders  of  public  opinion,  including  the  chief  mem- 
bers of  the  dramatic  profession.  In  this  important 
document,  particulars  were  given  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  State  or  the  municipality  aided  theatres 
in  France,  Germany,  Austria,  and  other  countries 
of  Europe.  It  was  shown  that  in  France  twelve 
typically  efficient  theatres  received  from  public  bod- 
ies an  annual  subsidy  amounting  in  the  aggregate 
to  £130,000. 

The  wording  of  the  petition  and  the  arguments 
employed  by  the  petitioners  were  applicable  to 
drama  as  well  as  to  opera.  In  fact  the  case  was 
put  in  a  way  which  was  more  favourable  to  the 
pretensions  of  drama  than  to  those  of  opera.  One 
argument  which  always  tells  against  the  establish- 
ment of  a  publicly-subsidised  opera-house  in  London 
does  not  affect  the  establishment  of  a  publicly-sub- 
sidised theatre.  Opera  is  an  exotic  in  England; 
drama  is  a  native  product,  and  has  exerted  in  the 
past  a  wider  influence  and  has  attracted  a  wider 
sympathy  than  Italian  or  German  music. 

The  London  County  Council,  after  careful  in- 
quiry, gave  the  scheme  of  1898  benevolent  encour- 
agement. Hope  was  held  out  that  a  site  for  either 
a  theatre  or  an  opera-house,  might  be  reserved  ''  in 
connection  with  one  of  the  contemplated  central 
improvements  of  London."  Nothing  in  the  recent 
history  of  the  London  County  Council  gives  ground 
for  doubting  that  it  will  be  prepared  to  give  prac- 
tical effect  to  a  thoroughly  matured  scheme. 

Within  the  Council  the  principle  of  the  munici- 
pal theatre  has  found  powerful  advocacy.  Mr  John 
Burns,  who  is  not  merely  the  spokesman  of  the 
working  classes,  but  is  a  representative  of  earnest- 


132  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

minded  students  of  good  literature,  has  supported 
the  principle  with  generous  enthusiasm.  The  in- 
telligent artisans  of  London  applaud  his  attitude. 
The  London  Trades  Council  passed  resolutions  in 
the  autumn  of  1901  recommending  the  erection  of  a 
theatre  by  the  London  County  Council,  ''so  that  a 
higher  standard  of  dramatic  art  might  be  encouraged 
and  made  more  accessible  to  the  wage-earning  classes 
as  is  the  case  in  the  State  and  municipal  theatres 
in  the  principal  cities  on  the  Continent."  The  gist 
of  the  argument  could  hardly  be  put  more  plainly. 

Of  those  who  have  written  recently  in  favour  of 
the  scheme  of  a  municipal  theatre  many  speak  with 
the  authority  of  exceptional  experience.  The  actor 
Mr  John  Coleman,  one  of  the  last  survivors  of 
Phelps's  company  at  Sadler's  Wells  Theatre,  argued 
with  cogency,  shortly  before  his  death  in  1903,  that 
the  national  credit  owed  it  to  itself  to  renew  Phelps's 
experiment  of  the  middle  of  last  century;  public 
intervention  was  imperative,  seeing  that  no  other 
means  were  forthcoming.  The  late  Sir  Henry  Irving 
in  his  closing  years  announced  his  conviction  that 
a  municipal  theatre  could  alone  keep  the  classical 
and  the  poetic  drama  fully  ahve  in  the  theatres. 
The  dramatic  critic,  Mr  William  Archer,  has  brought 
his  expert  knowledge  of  dramatic  organisation  at 
home  and  abroad  to  the  aid  of  the  agitation.  Vari- 
ous proposals  —  unhappily  of  too  vague  and  un- 
authoritative a  kind  to  guarantee  a  satisfactory 
reception — have  been  made  from  time  to  time  to 
raise  a  fund  to  build  a  national  theatre,  and  to  run  it 
for  five  years  on  a  public  subsidy  of  £10,000  a  year. 

The  advocates  of  the  municipalising  principle 
have  worked  for  the  most  part  in  isolation.     Such 


STATE-PROVIDED  ENLIGHTENMENT        133 

independence  tends  to  dissipate  rather  than  to  con- 
serve energy.  A  consoUdating  impulse  has  been 
sorely  needed.  But  the  variety  of  the  points  of 
views  from  which  the  subject  has  been  independently 
approached  renders  the  less  disputable  the  genuine 
width  of  public  interest  in  the  question. 

The  argument  that  it  is  contrary  to  pubhc  policy, 
or  that  it  is  opposed  to  the  duty  of  the  State  or 
municipahty,  to  provide  for  the  people's  enhghtened 
amusement,  is  not  formidable.  The  State  and  the 
municipahty  have  long  treated  such  work  as  part  of 
their  daily  functions,  whatever  the  arguments  that 
have  been  urged  against  it.  The  State,  in  partner- 
ship with  local  authorities,  educates  the  people, 
whether  they  Hke  it  or  no.  The  municipahties  of 
London  and  other  great  towns  provide  the  people, 
outside  the  theatre,  with  almost  every  opportunity 
of  enlightenment  and  enlightened  amusement.  In 
London  there  are  150  free  libraries,  which  are  mainly 
occupied  in  providing  the  ratepayers  with  the  oppor- 
tunities of  reading  fiction — recreation  which  is  not 
always  very  enlightened.  The  County  Council  of 
London  furnishes  bands  of  music  to  play  in  the  parks, 
at  an  expenditure  of  some  £6000  a  year.  Most  of 
our  great  cities  supply,  in  addition,  municipal  picture 
galleries,  in  which  the  citizens  take  pride,  and  to 
which  in  their  corporate  capacity  they  contribute 
large  sums  of  money.  The  municipal  theatre  is  the 
natural  complement  of  the  municipal  Ubrary,  the 
municipal  musical  entertainment,  and  the  municipal 
art  gallery. 


134  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 


Of  the  practicability  of  a  municipal  theatre  ample 
evidence  is  at  hand.  Foreign  experience  convinc- 
ingly justifies  the  municipal  mode  of  theatrical  en- 
terprise. Every  great  town  in  France,  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Switzerland  has  its  municipal  theatre. 
In  Paris  there  are  three,  in  addition  to  four  theatres 
which  are  subsidised  by  the  State.  It  is  estimated 
that  there  are  seventy  municipal  theatres  in  the 
German-speaking  countries  of  Europe,  apart  from 
twenty-seven  State  theatres.  At  the  same  time,  it 
should  be  noted  that  in  the  French  and  German 
capitals  there  are,  at  the  side  of  the  State  and 
municipal  playhouses,  numerous  theatres  which  are 
run  on  ordinary  commercial  lines.  The  prosperity  of 
these  houses  is  in  no  way  checked  by  the  contigu- 
ity of  theatrical  enterprise  of  State  or  municipality. 

All  municipal  theatres  on  the  continent  of  Europe 
pursue  the  same  aims.  They  strive  to  supply  the 
citizens  with  true  artistic  drama  continuously,  and 
to  reduce  the  cost  of  admission  to  the  playhouse  to 
the  lowest  possible  terms.  But  the  working  details 
of  the  foreign  municipal  theatres  differ  widely  in 
individual  cases,  and  a  municipality  which  con- 
templates a  first  theatrical  experiment  is  offered  a 
large  choice  of  method.  In  some  places  the  munici- 
pality acts  with  regal  mxunificence,  and  directly 
assumes  the  largest  possible  responsibilities.  It 
provides  the  site,  erects  the  theatre,  and  allots  a 
substantial  subsidy  to  its  maintenance.  The  mana- 
ger is  a  municipal  officer,  and  the  municipal  theatre 
fills  in  the  social  life  of  the  town  as  imposing  a  place 
as  the  town-hall,  cathedral,  or  university. 


CHOICE  OF  METHOD  135 

Elsewhere  the  municipaUty  sets  narrower  limits 
to  its  sphere  of  operations.  It  merely  provides  the 
site  and  the  building,  and  then  lets  the  playhouse  out 
at  a  moderate  rental  to  directors  of  proved  efficiency 
and  public  spirit,  on  assured  conditions  that  they 
honestly  serve  the  true  interests  of  art,  uphold  a 
high  standard  of  production,  avoid  the  frivolity  and 
spectacle  of  the  market,  and  fix  the  price  of  seats 
on  a  very  low  scale.  Here  no  pubfic  funds  are  seri- 
ously involved.  The  municipaUty  pays  no  subsidy. 
The  rent  of  the  theatre  suppUes  the  municipaUty 
with  normal  interest  on  the  capital  that  is  invested 
in  site  and  building.  It  is  public  credit  of  a  moral 
rather  than  of  a  material  kind  which  is  pledged  to 
the  cause  of  dramatic  art. 

In  a  third  class  of  municipal  theatre  the  pubUc 
body  confines  its  material  aid  to  the  gratuitous  provi- 
sion of  a  site.  Upon  that  site  private  enterprise  is 
invited  to  erect  a  theatre  under  adequate  guarantee 
that  it  shall  exclusively  respect  the  purposes  of  art, 
and  spare  to  the  utmost  the  pockets  of  the  play- 
goer. To  render  dramatic  art  accessible  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  mankind,  with  the  smallest  possible 
pressure  on  the  individual  citizen's  private  re- 
sources, is  of  the  essence  of  every  form  of  munici- 
pal theatrical  enterprise. 

The  net  result  of  the  municipal  theatre,  especially 
in  German-speaking  countries,  is  that  the  literary 
drama,  both  of  the  past  and  present,  maintains  a  grip 
on  the  playgoing  pubUc  which  is  outside  English 
experience.  There  is  in  Germany  a  very  flourishing 
modern  German  drama  of  literary  merit.  Suder- 
mann  and  Hauptmann  hold  the  ears  of  men  of  let- 
ters throughout  Europe.     Dramas  by  these  authors 


136  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

are  constantly  presented  in  municipal  theatres. 
At  the  same  time,  plays  by  the  classical  dramatists 
of  all  European  countries  are  performed  as  con- 
stantly, and  are  no  less  popular.  Almost  every  play 
of  Shakespeare  is  in  the  repertory  of  the  chief 
acting  companies  on  the  German  municipal  stage. 
At  the  side  of  Shakespeare  stand  Schiller  and  Goethe 
and  Lessing,  the  classical  dramatists  of  Germany; 
Moliere,  the  classical  dramatist  of  France;  and 
Calderon,  the  classical  dramatist  of  Spain.  Public 
interest  is  liberally  distributed  over  the  whole  range 
of  artistic  dramatic  effort.  Indeed,  during  recent 
years,  Shakespeare's  plays  have  been  performed  in 
Germany  more  often  than  plays  of  the  modern  Ger- 
man school.  Schiller,  the  classical  national  drama- 
tist of  Germany,  lives  more  conspicuously  on  the 
modern  German  stage  than  any  one  modern  German 
contemporary  writer,  eminent  and  popular  as  more 
than  one  contemporary  German  dramatist  deserved- 
ly is.  Thus  signally  has  the  national  or  municipal 
system  of  theatrical  enterprise  in  Germany  served 
the  cause  of  classical  drama.  All  the  beneficial  in- 
fluence and  gratification,  which  are  inherent  in  ar- 
tistic and  literary  drama,  are,  under  the  national 
or  municipal  system,  enjoyed  in  permanence  and 
security  by  the  German  people. 

Vienna  probably  offers  London  the  most  in- 
structive example  of  the  national  or  municipal 
theatre.  The  three  leading  Viennese  playhouses — 
the  Burg-Theater,  the  Stadt-Theater,  and  the  Volks- 
Theater — illustrate  the  three  modes  in  which  public 
credit  may  be  pledged  to  theatrical  enterprise.  The 
palatial  Burg-Theater  is  wholly  an  institution  of  the 
State.     The   site   of  the   Stadt-Theater,   and   to   a 


THE  EXAMPLE  OF  VIENNA  137 

large  extent  the  building,  were  provided  by  the 
municipality,  which  thereupon  leased  them  out  to  a 
private  syndicate,  under  a  manager  of  the  syndicate's 
choosing.  The  municipality  assumes  no  more  direct 
responsibility  for  the  due  devotion  of  the  Stadt- 
Theater  to  dramatic  art  than  is  implied  in  its  reten- 
tion of  reversionary  rights  of  ownership.  The  third 
theatre,  the  Volks-Theater,  illustrates  the  minimum 
share  that  a  municipality  may  take  in  promoting 
theatrical  enterprise,  while  guaranteeing  the  welfare 
of  artistic  drama. 

The  success  of  the  Volks-Theater  is  due  to  the 
co-operation  of  a  public  body  with  a  voluntary 
society  of  private  citizens  who  regard  the  main- 
tenance of  the  literary  drama  as  a  civic  duty.  The 
site  of  the  Volks-Theater,  which  was  formerly  public 
property  and  estimated  to  be  worth  £80,000,  is  in 
the  best  part  of  the  city  of  Vienna.  It  was  a  free 
gift  from  the  government  to  a  hmited  liabiHty  com- 
pany, formed  of  some  four  hundred  shareholders  of 
moderate  means,  who  formally  pledged  themselves 
to  erect  on  the  land  a  theatre  with  the  sole  object  of 
serving  the  purposes  of  dramatic  art.  The  interest 
payable  to  shareholders  is  strictly  limited  by  the 
conditions  of  association.  An  officially  sanctioned 
constitution  renders  it  obligatory  on  them  and  on 
their  officers  to  produce  in  the  playhouse  classical 
and  modern  drama  of  a  Hterary  character,  though 
not  necessarily  of  the  severest  type.  Merely  frivolous 
or  spectacular  pieces  are  prohibited,  and  at  least 
twice  a  week  purely  classical  pla3^s  must  be  pre- 
sented. No  piece  may  be  played  more  than  two 
nights  in  immediate  succession.  The  actors,  whose 
engagements  are  permanent,  are  substantially  paid, 


138  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

and  an  admirably  devised  system  of  pensions  is 
enforced  without  making  deductions  from  salaries. 
The  price  of  seats  is  fixed  at  a  low  rate,  the  highest 
price  being  4s.,  the  cheapest  and  most  numerous 
seats  costing  lOd.  each.  Both  financially  and  ar- 
tistically the  result  has  been  all  that  one  could 
wish.  There  is  no  public  subsidy,  but  the  Emperor 
pays  £500  a  year  for  a  box.  The  house  holds  1800 
persons,  yielding  gross  receipts  of  £200  for  a  nightly 
expenditure  of  £125.  There  are  no  advertising  ex- 
penses, no  posters.  The  newspapers  give  notice  of 
the  daily  programme  as  an  attractive  item  of  news. 

VI 

There  is  some  disinclination  among  Englishmen 
deliberately  to  adopt  foreign  methods,  to  follow 
foreign  examples,  in  any  walk  of  life.  But  no  per- 
son of  common  sense  will  reject  a  method  merely 
because  it  is  foreign,  if  it  can  be  proved  to  be  of 
utility.  It  is  spurious  patriotism  to  reject  wise 
counsel  because  it  is  no  native  product.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  seriously  to  asperse  the  culture  and 
intelligence  of  the  British  nation  to  assume  that  no 
appreciable  section  of  it  cherishes  that  taste  for  the 
literary  drama  which  keeps  the  national  or  municipal 
theatre  alive  in  France  and  Germany.  At  any  rate, 
judgment  should  be  held  in  suspense  until  the  British 
playgoers'  mettle  has  been  more  thoroughly  tested 
than  hitherto. 

No  less  humiliating  is  the  argument  that  the  art 
of  acting  in  this  country  is  at  too  low  an  ebb  to  justify 
the  assumption  by  a  public  body  of  responsibility 
for  theatrical  enterprise.     One  or  two  critics  assert 


THE  TRAINING  OF  ACTORS  139 

that  to  involve  public  credit  in  a  theatre,  until  there 
exist  an  efficient  school  of  acting,  is  to  put  the  cart 
before  the  horse.  This  objection  seems  insubstantial. 
Competent  actors  are  not  altogether  absent  from  the 
English  stage,  and  the  municipal  system  of  theatrical 
enterprise  is  calculated  to  increase  their  number 
rapidly. 

Abroad,  the  subsidised  theatres,  with  their  just 
schemes  of  salary,  their  permanent  engagements, 
their  well-devised  pension  systems,  attract  the  best 
class  of  the  profession.  A  competent  company  of 
actors,  which  enjoys  a  permanent  home  and  is 
governed  by  high  standards  of  art,  forms  the  best 
possible  school  of  acting,  not  merely  by  force  of 
example,  but  by  the  private  tuition  which  it  could 
readily  provide.  In  Vienna  the  companies  at  the 
subsidised  theatres  are  recruited  from  the  pupils 
of  a  State-endowed  conservatoire  of  actors.  It  is 
improbable  that  the  British  Government  will  found 
a  like  institution.  But  it  would  be  easy  to  attach 
a  college  of  acting  to  the  municipal  theatre,  and  to 
make  the  college  pay  its  way. 

Much  depends  on  the  choice  of  manager  of  the 
enterprise.  The  manager  of  a  municipal  theatre 
must  combine  with  business  aptitude  a  genuine 
devotion  to  dramatic  art  and  dramatic  literature. 
Without  a  fit  manager,  who  can  collect  and  control 
a  competent  company  of  actors,  the  scheme  of  the 
municipal  theatre  is  doomed  to  failure.  Managers 
of  the  requisite  temper,  knowledge,  and  ability  are 
not  lacking  in  France  or  Germany.  There  is  no 
reason  to  anticipate  that,  when  the  call  is  sounded, 
the  right  response  will  not  be  given  here. 

Cannot  an  experiment  be  made  in  London  on 


140  THE  MUNICIPAL  THEATRE 

the  lines  of  the  Vienna  Volks-Theater?  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  needful  to  bring  together  a  body  of  citizens 
who,  under  leadership  which  commands  public  con- 
fidence, will  undertake  to  build  and  control  for  a 
certain  term  of  years  a  theatre  of  suitable  design 
in  the  interests  of  dramatic  art,  on  conditions  sim- 
ilar to  those  that  have  worked  with  success  in  Ber- 
Hn,  Paris,  and  notably  Vienna.  Then  the  London 
County  Council  after  the  professions  it  has  made, 
might  be  reasonably  expected  to  undertake  so  much 
responsibility  for  the  proper  conduct  of  the  new 
playhouse  as  would  be  implied  by  its  provision  of 
a  site.  If  the  experiment  failed,  no  one  would  be 
much  the  worse;  if  it  succeeded,  as  it  ought  to  suc- 
ceed, the  nation  would  gain  in  repute  for  intelligence, 
culture,  and  enhghtened  patriotism;  it  would  rid 
itself  of  the  reproach  that  it  pays  smaller  and  less 
intelligent  regard  to  Shakespeare  and  the  literary 
drama  than  France,  Germany,  Austria,  or  Italy. 

Phelps's  single-handed  effort  brought  the  people 
of  London  for  eighteen  years  face  to  face  with  the 
great  English  drama  at  his  playhouse  at  Sadler's 
Wells.  ''I  made  that  enterprise  pay,"  he  said,  after 
he  retired;  ''not  making  a  fortune  certainly,  but 
bringing  up  a  large  family  and  paying  my  way." 
Private  troubles  and  illness  compelled  him  suddenly 
to  abandon  the  enterprise  at  the  end  of  eighteen 
years,  when  there  happened  to  be  none  at  hand  to 
take  his  place  of  leader.  All  that  was  wanting  to 
make  his  enterprise  permanent,  he  declared,  was 
some  public  control,  some  pubHc  acknowledgment  of 
responsibiUty  which,  without  impeding  the  efficient 
manager's  freedom  of  action,  would  cause  his  post  to 
be  properly  filled  in  case  of  an  accidental  vacancy. 


PHELPS  ON  PUBLIC  CONTROL  141 

Phelps  thought  that  if  he  could  do  so  much  during 
eighteen  years  by  his  personal,  isolated,  and  inde- 
pendent endeavour,  much  more  could  be  done  in  per- 
manence under  some  public  method  of  safeguard  and 
guarantee.  Phelps's  services  to  the  hterary  drama 
can  hardly  be  over-estimated.  His  mature  judg- 
ment is  not  to  be  lightly  gainsaid.  It  is  just  to  his 
memory  to  put  his  faith  to  a  practical  test. 


VII 

ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S 
PHILOSOPHY  1 


A  French  critic  once  remarked  that  a  whole  system 
of  philosophy  could  be  deduced  from  Shakespeare's 
pages,  though  from  all  the  works  of  the  philosophers 
one  could  not  draw  a  page  of  Shakespeare.  The 
second  statement — the  denial  of  the  presence  of  a 
page  of  Shakespeare  in  the  works  of  all  the  phi- 
losophers— is  more  accurate  than  the  assertion  that 
a  system  of  philosophy  could  be  deduced  from  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare.  It  is  hopeless  to  deduce  any 
precise  system  of  philosophy  from  Shakespeare's 
plays.  Literally,  philosophy  means  nothing  more 
recondite  than  love  of  wisdom.  Technically,  it 
means  scientifically  restrained  speculation  about  the 
causes  of  human  thought  and  conduct;  it  embraces 
the  sciences  of  logic,  of  ethics,  of  politics,  of  psychol- 
ogy, of  metaphysics.  Shakespeare's  training  and 
temper  unfitted  him  to  make  any  professed  con- 
tribution to  any  of  these  topics. 

Ignorant  persons  argue  on  hazy  grounds  that 
the  great  avowed  philosopher  of  Shakespeare's  day, 

^  This  paper,  which  was  originally  prepared  in  1 899  for  the 
purposes  of  a  popular  lecture,  is  here  printed  for  the  first  time. 
142 


BACON'S  PHILOSOPHICAL  METHOD  143 

Francis  Bacon,  wrote  Shakespeare's  plays.  There  is 
no  need  to  confute  the  theory,  which  confutes  itself. 
But,  if  a  confutation  were  needed,  it  lies  on  the  sur- 
face in  the  conflicting  attitudes  which  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  assume  towards  philosophy.  There  is 
no  mistaking  Bacon's  attitude.  The  supreme  aim 
of  his  WTitings  was  to  establish  the  practical  value, 
the  majestic  importance,  of  philosophy  in  its  strict 
sense  of  speculative  science.  He  sought  to  widen 
its  scope  and  to  multiply  the  ranks  of  its  students. 

Bacon's  method  is  formally  philosophic  in  texture. 
He  carefully  scrutinises,  illustrates,  seeks  to  justify 
each  statement  before  proceeding  to  a  conclusion. 
Every  essay,  every  treatise  of  Bacon,  conveys  the  im- 
pression not  merely  of  weighty,  pregnant  eloquence, 
but  of  the  argumentative  and  philosophic  temper. 
Bacon's  process  of  thinking  is  conscious :  it  is  visible 
behind  the  words.  The  argument  progresses  with 
a  cumulative  force.  It  draws  sustenance  from  the 
recorded  opinions  of  others.  The  points  usually 
owe  consistency  and  firmness  to  quotations  from  old 
authors — Greek  and  Latin  authors,  especially  Plato 
and  Plutarch,  Lucretius  and  Seneca.  To  Bacon,  as 
to  all  professed  students  of  the  subject,  philosophy 
first  revealed  itself  in  the  pages  of  the  Greek  writers 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  the  founders  for  modern  Europe 
of  the  speculative  sciences  of  human  thought  and 
conduct.  Greatly  as  Bacon  modified  the  Greek 
system  of  philosophy,  he  began  his  philosophic  career 
under  the  influence  of  Aristotle,  and,  despite  his  de- 
structive criticism  of  his  master,  he  never  wholly 
divested  himself  of  the  methods  of  exposition  to 
which  the  Greek  philosopher's  teaching  introduced 
him. 


144   ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

In  their  attitudes  to  philosophy,  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon  are  as  the  poles  asunder.  Shakespeare 
practically  ignores  the  existence  of  philosophy  as  a 
formal  science.  He  betrays  no  knowledge  of  its 
Greek  origin  and  developments. 

There  are  two  short,  slight,  conventional  men- 
tions of  Aristotle's  name  in  Shakespeare's  works. 
One  is  a  very  slight  allusion  to  Aristotle's  '' checks" 
or  ''moral  discipline"  in  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 
That  passage  is  probably  from  a  coadjutor's  pen. 
In  any  case  it  is  merely  a  playful  questioning  of  the 
title  of  ''sweet  philosophy"  to  monopolize  a  young 
man's  education. ^ 

The  other  mention  of  Aristotle  is  in  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  and  raises  points  of  greater  interest. 
Hector  scornfully  likens  his  brothers  Troilus  and 
Paris,  when  they  urge  persistence  in  the  strife  with 
Greece,  to  "young  men  whom  Aristotle  thought  un- 
fit to  hear  moral  philosophy"  (II.  2,  166).  The 
words  present  the  meaning,  but  not  the  language, 
of  a  sentence  in  Aristotle's  "Nicomachean  Ethics" 
(i.  8).  Aristotle  there  declares  passionate  youth  to 
be  unfitted  to  study  political  philosophy;  he  makes 
no  mention  of  moral  philosophy.  The  change  of 
epithet  does,  however,  no  injustice  to  Aristotle's 
argument.     His  context   makes   it   plain,   that   by 

^  Tranio,  the  attendant  on  the  young  Pisan,  Lucentio,  who 
has  come  to  Padua  to  study  at  the  university,  counsels  his  master 
to  widen  the  field  of  his  studies: — 

Only,  good  master,  while  we  do  admire 
This  virtue  and  this  moral  discipline. 
Let's  be  no  Stoics,  nor  no  stocks,  I  pray. 
Or  so  devote  to  Aristotle's  checks. 
As  Ovid  be  an  outcast  quite  adjured. 

— The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  i.  2,  29-33. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  ARISTOTLE  145 

political  philosophy  he  means  the  ethics  of  civil 
society,  which  are  hardly  distinguishable  from  what 
is  commonly  called  '^morals."  The  maxim,  in  the 
slightly  irregular  shape  which  Shakespeare  adopted, 
enjoyed  proverbial  currency  before  the  dramatist 
was  born.  Erasmus  introduced  it  in  this  form  into 
his  far-famed  Colloquies.  In  France  and  Italy  the 
warning  against  instructing  youth  in  moral  philos- 
ophy was  popularly  accepted  as  an  Aristotelian  in- 
junction. Sceptics  about  the  obvious  Shakespearean 
tradition  have  made  much  of  the  circumstance  that 
Bacon,  who  cited  the  aphorism  from  Aristotle  in  his 
Advancement  of  Learning,  substituted,  like  Shake- 
speare in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  the  epithet  '^ moral'* 
for  'Apolitical."  The  proverbial  currency  of  the 
emendation  deprives  the  coincidence  of  point. 

The  repetition  of  a  proverbial  phrase,  indirectly 
drawn  from  Aristotle,  combined  with  the  absence  of 
other  references  to  the  Greek  philosopher,  renders 
improbable  Shakespeare's  personal  acquaintance 
with  his  work.  In  any  case,  the  bare  mention  of 
the  name  of  Aristotle  implies  nothing  in  this  con- 
nection. It  was  a  popular  synonym  for  ancient 
learning.  It  was  as  often  on  the  lips  of  Elizabethans 
as  Bacon's  name  is  on  the  lips  of  men  and  women  of 
to-day,  and  it  would  be  rash  to  infer  that  those  who 
carelessly  and  casually  mentioned  Bacon's  name  to- 
day knew  Bacon's  writings  or  philosophic  theories 
at  first  hand. 

No  evidence  is  forthcoming  that  Shakespeare 
knew  in  any  solid  sense  aught  of  philosophy  of  the 
formal  scientific  kind.  On  scientific  philosophy,  and 
on  natural  science,  Shakespeare  probably  looked 
with  suspicion.     He  expressed  no  high  opinion  of 


146   ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

astronomers,  who  pursue  the  most  imposing  of  all 
branches  of  scientific  speculation. 

Small  have  continual  plodders  ever  won. 

Save  base  authority  from  others'  books. 

These  earthly  godfathers  of  heaven's  light, 

That  give  a  name  to  every  fixed  star, 

Have  no  more  profit  of  their  shining  nights 

Than  those  that  walk,  and  wot  not  what  they  are. 

— Love's  Labour's  Lost,  I.,  i.,  86-91- 

This  is  a  characteristically  poetic  attitude;  it  is 
the  antithesis  of  the  scientific  attitude.  Formal 
logic  excited  Shakespeare's  disdain  even  more  con- 
spicuously. In  the  mouths  of  his  professional  fools 
he  places  many  reductions  to  absurdity  of  what  he 
calls  the  ''simple  syllogism."  He  invests  the  term 
''chop-logic"  with  the  significance  of  foolery  in 
excelsis.^  Again,  metaphysics,  in  any  formal  sense, 
were  clearly  not  of  Shakespeare's  world.  On  one 
occasion  he  wrote  of  the  topic  round  which  most 
metaphysical  speculation  revolves: — 

We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  by  a  sleep. 

—The  Tempest,  IV.,  i.,  156-8. 

^  The  speeches  of  the  clown  in  Twelfth  Night  are  particularly 
worthy  of  study  for  the  satiric  adroitness  with  which  they  expose 
the  quibbling  futility  of  syllogistic  logic.  Cf.  Act  I.,  Scene  V., 
11.  43-57: 

Olivia.  Go  to,  you're  a  dry  fool;  I'll  no  more  of  you:  besides 
you  grow  dishonest. 

Clown.  Two  faults.  Madonna,  that  drink  and  good  counsel 
will  amend :  for  give  the  dry  fool  drink,  then  is  the  fool  not  dry : 
bid  the  dishonest  man  mend  himself;  if  he  mend,  he  is  no  longer 
dishonest;  if  he  cannot,  let  the  botcher  mend  him.  Anything 
that's  mended  is  but  patched:  virtue  that  transgresses  is  but 
patched  with  sin ;  and  sin  that  amends  is  but  patched  with  virtue. 
If  that  this  simple  syllogism  will  serve,  so;  if  it  will  not,  what 
remedy  ? 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  METAPHYSICS  147 

Such  a  theory  of  human  hfe  is  first-rate  poetry;  it 
is  an  ilkiminating  figure  of  poetic  speech.  But  the 
simplicity  with  which  the  theme  is  presented,  to 
the  exclusion  of  many  material  issues,  puts  the 
statement  out  of  the  plane  of  metaphysical  disquisi- 
tion, which  involves  subtle  conflict  of  argument  and 
measured  resolution  of  doubt,  rather  than  imagina- 
tive certainty  or  unconditional  assertion.  Nor  is 
Hamlet's  famous  soliloquy  on  the  merits  and  de- 
merits of  suicide  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  the  meta- 
physician. It  is  a  dramatic  description  of  a  familiar 
phase  of  emotional  depression;  it  explains  nothing; 
it  propounds  no  theory.  It  reflects  a  state  of 
feeling;  it  breathes  that  torturing  spirit  of  despon- 
dency which  kills  all  hope  of  mitigating  either 
the  known  iUs  of  life  or  the  imagined  terrors  of 
death. 

The  faint,  shadowy  glimpses  which  Shakespeare 
had  of  scientific  philosophy  gave  him  small  respect 
for  it.  Like  the  typical  hard-headed  Englishman,  he 
doubted  its  practical  efficacy.  Shakespeare  viewed 
all  formal  philosophy  much  as  Dr  Johnson's  Rasselas, 
whose  faith  in  it  dwindled,  when  he  perceived  that 
the  professional  philosopher,  who  preached  superi- 
ority to  all  human  frailties  and  weaknesses,  suc- 
cumbed to  them  at  the  first  provocation. 

There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy.^ 

For  there  was  never  yet  philosopher 

That  could  endure  the  toothache  patiently." 


^Hamlet,  I.,  v.,  166-7. 

^  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,   V.,  i.,  35-6. 


148    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

Such  phrases  sum  up  Shakespeare's  habitual  bearing 
to  formal  philosophy.  The  consideration  of  causes, 
first  principles,  abstract  truths  never,  in  the  drama- 
tist's opinion,  cured  a  human  ill.  The  futility  of  for- 
mal philosophy  stands,  from  this  point  of  view,  in  no 
further  need  of  demonstration. 


II 

But  it  is  permissible  to  use  the  words  philosopher 
and  philosophy,  without  scientific  precision  or  sig- 
nificance, in  the  popular  inaccurate  senses  of  shrewd 
observer  and  observation  of  life.  By  philosophy 
we  may  understand  common-sense  wisdom  about 
one's  fellow-men,  their  aspirations,  their  failures  and 
successes.  As  soon  as  we  employ  the  word  in  that 
significance,  we  must  allow  that  few  men  were  better 
philosophers  than  Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare  is  what  Touchstone  calls  the  shep- 
herd in  As  You  Like  It — "si  natural  philosopher" 
— an  observer  by  light  of  nature,  an  acute  exposi- 
tor of  phases  of  human  life  and  feeling.  Character, 
thought,  passion,  emotion,  form  the  raw  material 
of  which  ethical  or  metaphysical  systems  are  made. 
The  poet's  contempt  for  formal  ethical  or  meta- 
physical theory  co-existed  with  a  searching  know- 
ledge of  the  ultimate  foundations  of  all  systematised 
philosophic  structures.  The  range  of  fact  or  know- 
ledge within  which  the  formal  theorist  speculates  in 
the  fields  of  ethics,  logic,  metaphysics,  or  psychol- 
ogy, is,  indeed,  very  circumscribed  when  it  is  com- 
pared with  the  region  of  observation  and  experience, 
over  which  Shakespeare  exerted  complete  mastery. 

Almost  ever>^  aspect  of  fife  Shakespeare  portrays 


SHAKESPEARE'S  INTUITIVE  FACULTY       149 

with  singular  evenness  of  insight.  He  saw  hfe 
whole.  The  web  of  life  always  presented  itself  to 
him  as  a  mingled  yarn,  good  and  ill  together.  He 
did  not  stay  to  reconcile  its  contradictions.  He 
adduces  a  wealth  of  evidence  touching  ethical  ex- 
perience. It  may  be  that  the  patient  scrutiny  of 
formal  philosophers  can  alone  reveal  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  his  harvest.  But  the  dramatist's  exposition 
of  the  workings  of  virtue  or  vice  have  no  recondite 
intention.  Shakespeare  was  no  patient  scholar,  who 
deliberately  sought  to  extend  the  limits  of  human 
knowledge.  With  unrivalled  ease  and  celerity  he 
digested,  in  the  recesses  of  his  consciousness,  the 
fruit  of  personal  observation  and  reading.  His  aim  . 
was  to  depict  only  conscious  human  conduct  and 
himian  thought.  He  interpreted  them  unconscious- 
ly, by  virtue  of  an  involuntary  intuition. 

Shakespeare's  intuition  pierces  life  at  the  lowest 
as  well  as  at  the  highest  level  of  experience.  It  is 
coloured  by  delicate  imaginative  genius  as  well  as 
by  robust  and  practical  worldliness.  Not  his  writ- 
ings only,  but  the  facts  of  his  private  Ufe — his  mode 
of  managing  his  private  property,  for  example — 
attest  his  alert  knowledge  of  the  material  and  prac- 
tical affairs  of  human  existence.  Idealism  and  real- 
ism in  perfect  development  were  interwoven  with 
the  texture  of  his  mind. 

Shakespeare  was  qualified  by  mental  endowment 
for  success  in  any  career.  He  was  by  election  a 
dramatist  and,  necessarily,  one  of  unmatched  ver- 
satiUty.  His  intuitive  faculty  enabled  him,  after  re- 
garding life  from  any  point  of  view  that  he  willed, 
to  depict  through  the  mouths  of  his  characters  the  \ 
chosen  phase  of  life  in  convincing,  harmonious  accord 


150    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

with  his  characters'  individual  circumstances  and 
experiences.  No  obvious  trace  of  his  own  personal 
circumstance  or  experience  was  suffered  to  emerge 
in  the  utterances  of  his  characters,  who  lived  for  the 
moment  in  his  brain.  It  is  a  commonplace  to  credit 
Shakespeare  with  supreme  dramatic  instinct.  It  is 
difficult  fully  to  realise  the  significance  of  that  at- 
tribute. It  means  that  he  could  contract  or  expand 
at  will  and  momentarily  his  own  personality,  so 
that  it  coincided  exactly,  now  with  a  self-indulgent 
humorist  like  Falstaff,  now  with  an  introspective 
student  hke  Hamlet,  now  with  a  cynical  criminal 
like  lago,  now  with  a  high-spirited  girl  like  Rosa- 
lind, now  with  an  ambitious  woman  hke  Lady 
Macbeth,  and  then  with  a  hundred  more  characters 
hardly  less  distinctive  than  these.  It  means  that 
he  could  contrive  the  coincidence  so  absolutely  as 
to  leave  no  loophole  for  the  introduction,  into  the 
several  dramatic  utterances,  of  any  sentiment  that 
should  not  be  on  the  face  of  it  adapted  by  right  of 
nature  to  the  speaker's  idiosyncrasies.  That  was 
Shakespeare's  power.  It  is  a  power  of  which  the 
effects  are  far  easier  to  recognise  than  the  causes  or 
secret  of  operation. 

In  the  present  connection  it  is  happily  only 
necessary  to  dwell  on  Shakespeare's  dramatic  instinct 
in  order  to  guard  against  the  peril  of  dogmatising 
from  his  works  about  his  private  opinions.  So  vari- 
ous and  conflicting  are  Shakespeare's  dramatic  pro- 
nouncements on  phases  of  experience  that  it  is 
difficult  and  dangerous  to  affirm  which  pronounce- 
ments, if  any,  present  most  closely  his  personal 
sentiment.  He  fitted  the  lips  of  his  dramatis  per- 
sons with   speeches  and  sentiments  so  pecuharly 


SHAKESPEARE'S  PERSONAL  OPINIONS       151 

adapted  to  them  as  to  show  no  one  quite  undisputed 
sign  of  their  creator's  personahty. 

Yet  there  are  occasions  when,  without  detracting 
from  the  omnipotence  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  in- 
stinct, one  may  tentatively  infer  that  Shakespeare 
gave  voice  through  his  created  personages  to  senti- 
ments which  were  his  own.  The  Shakespearean 
drama  must  incorporate  somewhere  within  its  vast 
hmits  the  personal  thoughts  and  passions  of  its 
creator,  even  although  they  are  for  the  most  part 
absorbed  past  recognition  in  the  mighty  mass,  and 
no  critical  chemistry  can  with  confidence  disentangle 
them.  At  any  rate,  there  are  in  the  plays  many 
utterances — ethical  utterances,  or  observations  con- 
ceived in  the  spirit  of  "a  natural  philosopher" — 
which  are  repeated  to  much  the  same  effect  at  differ- 
ent periods  of  the  poet's  career.  These  reiterated 
opinions  frequently  touch  the  conditions  of  well- 
being  or  calamity  in  civilised  society;  they  often 
deal  with  man  in  civic  or  social  relation  with  his 
neighbour;  they  define  the  capabilities  of  his  will. 
It  is  unHkely  that  observations  of  this  nature  would 
be  repeated  if  the  sentiments  they  embody  were  out 
of  harmony  with  the  author's  private  conviction. 
Often  we  shall  not  strain  a  point  or  do  our  critical 
sense  much  violence  if  we  assume  that  these  recurring 
thoughts  are  Shakespeare's  own.  I  purpose  to  call 
attention  to  a  few  of  those  which  bear  on  large 
questions  of  government  and  citizenship  and  human 
volition.  Involuntarily,  they  form  the  framework 
of  a  political  and  moral  philosophy,  which  for  clear- 
eyed  sanity  is  without  rival. 


152    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

III 

Shakespeare's  political  philosophy  is  instinct  with 
the  loftiest  moral  sense.  Directly  or  indirectly,  he 
defines  many  times  the  essential  virtues  and  the 
inevitable  temptations  which  attach  to  persons  exer- 
cising legalised  authority  over  their  fellow-men. 
The  topic  always  seems  to  stir  in  Shakespeare  his 
most  serious  tone  of  thought  and  word.  No  one, 
in  fact,  has  conceived  a  higher  standard  of  public 
virtue  and  public  duty  than  Shakespeare.  His 
intuition  rendered  him  tolerant  of  human  imperfec- 
tion. He  is  always  in  kindly  sympathy  with  failure, 
with  suffering,  with  the  oppressed.  Consequently 
he  brings  at  the  outset  into  clearer  relief  than  pro- 
fessed political  philosophers,  the  saving  quality  of 
mercy  in  rulers  of  men.  Twice  Shakespeare  pleads  | 
in  almost  identical  terms,  through  the  mouths  of 
created  characters,  for  generosity  on  the  part  of 
governors  of  states  towards  those  who  sin  against 
law.  In  both  cases  he  places  his  argument,  with 
significant  delicacy,  on  the  lips  of  women.  At  a 
comparatively  early  period  in  his  career  as  drama- 
tist, in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Portia  first  gave 
voice  to  the  political  virtue  of  compassion.  At  a 
much  later  period  Shakespeare  set  the  same  plea  in 
the  mouth  of  Isabella  in  Measure  for  Measure.  The 
passages  are  too  familiar  to  justify  quotation.  Very 
brief  extracts  will  bring  out  clearly  the  identity  of 
sentiment  which  finds  definition  in  the  two  passages. 

These  are  Portia's  views  of  mercy  on  the  throne 
{Merchant  of  Venice,  IV.,  i.,  188  seq.) : — 

'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest;  it  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown; 


MERCY  IN  KINGS  153 

Mercy  is  above  this  sceptred  sway; 
It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings. 
It  is  an  attribute  to  God  himself; 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's, 
When  mercy  seasons  justice. 

Consider  this. 
That  in  the  course  of  justice  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation.-^ 

Here  are  Isabella's  words  in  Measure  for  Measure 
(II.,  ii.,  59  seq.) : — 

No  ceremony  that  to  great  ones  'longs. 
Not  the  king's  crown,  nor  the  deputed  sword, 
The  marshal's  truncheon,  nor  the  judge's  robe, 
Become  them  with  one  half  so  good  a  grace 
As  mercy  does. 

How  would  you  be 
If  He,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are.'' 

O,  it  is  excellent 
To  have  a  giant's  strength;  but  it  is  tyrannous 
To  use  it  like  a  giant. 

Mercy  is  the  predominating  or  crowning  virtue  I 
that    Shakespeare    demands    in    rulers.     But    the 
Shakespearean   code   is   innocent   of   any   taint   of 

^  In  a  paper  on  "  Latin  as  an  Intellectual  Force,"  read  before 
the  International  Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences  at  St.  Louis  in 
September,  1904,  Professor  E.  A.  Sonnenschein  sought  to  show 
that  Portia's  speech  on  mercy  is  based  on  Seneca's  tract,  De 
dementia.  The  most  striking  parallel  passages  are  the  follow- 
ing:— 

It  becomes 
The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown.     (M.  of  V.,  IV.,  i., 
189-90.) 

Nullum  dementia  ex  omnibus  magis  quam  regem  aut  princi- 
pem  decet.     (Seneca,  De  dementia,  I.,  iii.,  3,)  : — 

'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest. 


154    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

sentimentalit}^,  and  mercifulness  is  far  from  being 
the  sovereign's  sole  qualification  or  primal  test  of 
fitness.  More  especially  are  kings  and  judges  bound 
by  their  responsibilities  and  their  duties  to  eschew 
self-glorification  or  self-indulgence.  It  is  the  virtues 
of  the  holders  of  office,  not  their  office  itself,  which 
entitles  them  to  consideration.  Adventitious  cir- 
cumstances give  no  man  claim  to  respect.  A  man 
•jis  alone  worthy  of  regard  by  reason  of  his  personal 
]  character.  Honour  comes  from  his  own  acts,  neither 
from  his  ''foregoers''  (i.e.,  ancestors)  nor  from  his 

Eo  scilicet  formosius  id  esse  magnificentiusque  fatebimur  quo 
in  maiore  praestabitur  potestate  (I.,  xix.,  1): — 

But  mercy  is  above  this  sceptred  sway. 
It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings: 
It  is  an  attribute  of  God  Himself. 

—M.  of   v.,  IV.,  i.,  193-5. 

Quod  si  di  placabiles  et  aequi  delicta  potentium  non  statim 
fulminibus  persequuntur,  quanto  aequius  est  hominem  hominibus 
praepositum  miti  animo  exercere  imperium.^  (I.,  vii.,  2): — 
And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 
When  mercy  seasons  justice. 

—M.  of  v.,  IV.,  i.,  196-7. 

Quid  autem?  Non  proximum  eis  (dis)  locum  tenet  is  qui  se 
ex  deorum  natura  gerit  beneficus  et  largus  et  in  melius  potens? 
(I.,  xix.,  9)  :— 

Consider  this, 
That,  in  the  course  of  justice,  none  of  us 
Should  see  salvation. 

— M.  of  v.,  IV.,  i.,  198-200. 

Cogitato  .  .  .  quanta  solitudo  et  vastitas  futura  sit  si  nihil 
relinquitur  nisi  quod  index  severus  absolverit  (I.,  vi.,  1). 

This  remarkable  series  of  parallelisms  does  not  affect  the 
argument  in  the  text  that  Shakespeare,  who  reiterated  Portia's 
pleas  in  similar  phraseology  in  Isabella's  speeches,  had  a  personal 
faith  in  the  declared  sentiment.  Whether  the  parallelism  is  to  be 
explained  as  conscious  borrowing  or  accidental  coincidence  is  an 
open  question. 


TRUE  TITLES  TO  HONOUR  155 

rank  in  society.  ''Good  alone  is  good  without  a 
name."  This  is  not  the  view  of  the  world,  which 
values  lying  trophies,  rank,  or  wealth.  The  world  is 
thereby  the  sufferer.  ^ 

The  world  honours  a  judge;  but  if  the  judge  be 
indebted  to  his  office  and  not  to  his  character  for  the 
respect  that  is  paid  him,  he  may  deserve  no  more 
honour  than  the  criminal  in  the  dock,  whom  he 
sentences  to  punishment.  ''A  man  may  see  how 
this  world  goes  with  no  eyes,"  says  King  Lear  to  the 
blind  Gloucester.  ''Look  with  thine  ears;  see  how 
yond  justice  rails  upon  yond  simple  thief.  Hark,  in 
thine  ear;  change  places,  and,  handy-dandy,  which  is 
the  justice,  which  is  the  thief?  Thou  hast  seen  a 
farmer's  dog  bark  at  a  beggar?  And  the  creature 
run  from  the  cur?  There  thou  mightst  behold  the 
great  image  of  authority;  a  dog's  obeyed  in  office." 
"The  great  image  of  authority"  is  often  a  brazen 
idol. 

Hereditary  rulers  form  no  inconsiderable  section    \ 
of  Shakespeare's  dramatis  personce.     In  Macbeth  (IV., 

^  From  lowest  place,  when  virtuous  things  proceed. 
The  place  is  dignified  by  the  doer's  deed: 
Where  great  additions  swell  's,  and  virtue  none. 
It  is  a  dropsied  honour:  good  alone 
Is  good  without  a  name^ vileness  is  so: 
The  property  by  what  it  is  should  go. 
Not  by  the  title;   .  .  .  that  is  honour's  scorn. 
Which  challenges  itself  as  honour's  born. 
And  is  not  like  the  sire  :|  honours  thrive 
When  rather  from  our  acts  we  them  derive 
Than  our  f oregoers :  the  mere  word  's  a  slave, 
Debauch'd  on  every  tomb;  on  every  grave 
A  lying  trophy;  and  as  oft  is  dumb 
Where  dust  and  damn'd  oblivion  is  the  tomb 
Of  honour'd  bones  indeed. 

— All's  Well,  II.,  iii.,  130  seq. 


166    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

iii.,  92-4)  he  specifically  defined  ''the  king-becoming 
graces": — 

As  justice,  verity,  temperance,  stableness, 
Bounty,  perseverance,  mercy,  lowliness. 
Devotion,  patience,  courage,  fortitude. 

But  the  dramatist's  main  energies  are  devoted  to 
exposure  of  the  hollowness  of  this  counsel  of  perfec- 
tion. Temptations  to  vice  beset  rulers  of  men  to  a 
degree  that  is  unknown  to  their  subjects.  To^varice 
rulers  are  especially  prone.  Stanchless  avarice  con-  ^ 
stantly  converts  kings  of  ordinary  clay  into  mon-  \ 
sters.     How  often  they  forge 

Quarrels  unjust  against  the  good  and  loyal. 
Destroying  them  for  wealth. 

— Macbeth,   IV.,  iii.,   83-4. 

Intemperance  in  all  things — in  work  and  pleasure 
— is  a  standing  menace  of  monarchs. 

Boundless  intemperance 
in  Nature  is  a  tyranny:  it  hath  been 
Th'  imtimely  emptying  of  the  happy  throne 
And  fall  of  many  kings. 

— Macbeth,  IV.,  iii.,  66-9. 

A  leader  of  men,  if  he  be  capable  of  salvation,  must 
''dehght  no  less  in  truth  than  life."  Yet  "truth," 
for  the  most  part,  is  banished  from  the  conventional 
environment  of  royalty. 

Repeatedly  does  Shakespeare  bring  into  dazzling 
relief  the  irony  which  governs  the  being  of  kings. 
Want  of  logic  and  defiance  of  ethical  principle  under- 
lie their  pride  in  magnificent  ceremonial  and  pagean- 
try. The  ironic  contrast  between  the  pretensions  of 
a  king  and  the  actual  limits  of  human  destiny  is  a 
text  which  Shakespeare  repeatedly  clothespin  golden 
language. 

It  is  to  be  admitted  that  nearly  all  the  kings  in 


SHAKESPEARE  ON  ROYAL  CEREMONY       157 

Shakespeare's  gallery  frankly  acknowledge  the  make- 
believe  and  unreality  which  dogs  regal  pomp  and  \ 
ceremony.  In  self-communion  they  acknowledge  the 
ruler's  difficulty  in  finding  truth  in  their  traditional 
scope  of  fife.  In  a  great  outburst  on  the  night 
before  Agincourt,  Henry  V. — the  only  king  whom 
Shakespeare  seems  thoroughly  to  admire — openly 
describes  the  inevitable  confusion  between  fact  and 
fiction  which  infects  the  conditions  of  royalty. 
Anxiety  and  unhappiness  are  so  entwined  with  cere- 
monial display  as  to  deprive  the  king  of  the  reliefs 
and  recreations  which  freely  lie  at  the  disposal  of 
ordinary  men. 

What  infinite  heart's-ease 
Must  kings  neglect  that  private  men  enjoy! 
And  what  have  kings  that  privates  have  not  too. 
Save  ceremony,  save  general  ceremony? 
And  what  art  thou,  thou  idol  ceremony? 
What  kind  of  god  art  thou,  that  sufFer'st  more 
Of  mortal  griefs  than  do  thy  worshippers? 
What  are  thy  rents?  what  are  thy  comings-in? 

0  ceremony,  show  me  but  thy  worth! 
What  is  thy  soul  of  adoration? 

Art  thou  aught  else  but  place,  degree,  and  form. 

Creating  awe  and  fear  in  other  men? 

Wherein  thou  art  less  happy  being  fear'd 

Than  they  in  fearing. 

What  drink'st  thou  oft,  instead  of  homage  sweet. 

But  poison'd  flattery?     O,  be  sick,  great  greatness. 

And  bid  thy  ceremony  give  thee  cure ! 

Think'st  thou  the  fiery  fever  will  go  out 

With  titles  blown  from  adulation? 

Will  it  give  place  to  flexure  and  low  bending? 

Canst  thou,  when  thou  command'st  the  beggar's  knee. 

Command  the  health  of  it?     No,  thou  proud  dream 

That  play'st  so  subtly  with  a  king's  repose: 

1  am  a  king  that  find  thee;  and  I  know 
'Tis  not  the  balm,  the  sceptre,  and  the  ball. 
The  sword,  the  mace,  the  cro\vn  imperial. 
The  intertissued  robe  of  gold  and  pearl. 


158   ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

The  farced  title  running  'fore  the  king, 

The  throne  he  sits  on,  nor  tlie  tide  of  pomp 

That  beats  upon  the  high  shore  of  this  world, — 

No,  not  all  these,  thrice  gorgeous  ceremony. 

Not  all  these,  laid  in  bed  majestical. 

Can  sleep  so  soundly  as  the  wretched  slave 

Who,  with  a  body  flll'd  and  vacant  mind 

Gets  him  to  rest,  cramm'd  with  distressful  bread. 

—Henry  V.,  IV.,  i.,  253-87. 

Barely  distinguishable  is  the  sentiment  which 
finds  expression  in  the  pathetic  speech  of  Henry  V.'s 
father  when  he  vainly  seeks  that  sleep  which  thousands 
of  his  poorest  subjects  enjoy.  The  sleepless  king 
points  to  the  irony  of  reclining  on  the  kingly  couch 
beneath  canopies  of  costly  state  when  sleep  refuses 
to  weigh  his  eyelids  down  or  steep  his  senses  in  for- 
ge tfulness.  The  king  is  credited  with  control  of 
every  comfort;  but  he  is  denied  by  nature  comforts 
which  she  places  freely  at  command  of  the  humblest. 
So  again  does  Richard  II.  soliloquize  on  the  vain 
pride  which  imbues  the  king,  while  death  all  the 
time  grins  at  his  pomp  and  keeps  his  own  court 
within  the  hollow  crown  that  rounds  the  prince's 
mortal  temples.  Yet  again,  to  identical  effect  is 
Henry  VI. 's  sorrowful  question: 

Gives  not  the  hawthorn-bush  a  sweeter  shade, 
To  shepherds  looking  on  their  silly  sheep. 
Than  doth  a  rich-embroidered  canopy 
To  kings  that  fear  their  subjects'  treachery? 

—3  Henry  VI.,  II.,  v.,  42-5. 

To  this  text  Shakespeare  constantly  recurs,  and 
he  bestows  on  it  all  his  fertile  resources  of  illustration. 
The  reiterated  exposition  by  Shakespeare  of  the 
hollowness  of  kingly  ceremony  is  a  notable  feature 
of  his  poHtical  sentiment.  The  dramatist's  inde- 
pendent analysis  of  the  quiddity  of  kingship  is,  in- 


TWO  VIEWS  OF  KINGSHIP  159 

deed,  alike  in  manner  and  matter,  a  startling  con- 
tribution to  sixteenth  century  speculation.  In  man- 
ner it  is  worthy  of  Shakespeare's  genius  at  its 
highest.  In  matter  it  is  for  its  day  revolution- 
ary^ rationalism.  It  defies  a  popular  doctrine,  held  *. 
almost  universally  by  Shakespeare's  contemporar}^ 
fellow-countrymen,  that  royalty  is  divine  and  under 
God's  special  protection,  that  the  gorgeous  ceremony 
of  the  throne  reflects  a  heavenly  attribute,  and  that 
the  king  is  the  pampered  favourite  of  heaven. 

Bacon  defined  a  king  ^dth  slender  quahfications, 
as  ''a  mortal  god  on  earth  unto  whom  the  living  God 
has  lent  his  own  name."  Shakespeare  was  well 
acquainted  with  this  accepted  doctrine.  He  oftpu 
gives  dramatic  definition  of  it.  He  declines  to  admit 
its  soundness.  AVherever  he  quotes  it,  he  adds  an 
ironical  comment,  which  was  calculated  to  perturb 
the  orthodox  royalist.  Having  argued  that  the 
day-labourer  or  the  shepherd  is  far  happier  than  a 
king,  he  logically  refuses  to  admit  that  the  monarch 
is  protected  by  God  from  any  of  the  ills  of  mortality. 
Richard  II.  may  assert  that  'Hhe  hand  of  God  alone,  1 
and  no  hand  of  blood  or  bone"  can  rob  him  of  the 
sacred  handle  of  his  sceptre.  But  the  catastrophe 
of  the  play  demonstrates  that  that  theft  is  entirely 
within  human  scope.  The  king  is  barbarously  mur- 
dered. In  Hamlet  the  graceless  usurping  uncle  ■ 
declares  that  ''such  divinity  doth  hedge  a  king," 
that  treason  cannot  endanger  his  life.  But  the 
speaker  is  run  through  the  body  very  soon  after  the 
brag  escapes  his  hps. 

Shakespeare  is  no  comfortable  theorist,  no  re- 
specter of  orthodox  doctrine,  no  smooth-tongued 
approver  of  fashionable  dogma.     His  acute  intellect 


160    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

cuts  away  all  the  cobwebs,  all  the  illusions,  all  the 
delusions,  of  formulse.  His  untutored  insight  goes 
down  to  the  root  of  things;  his  king  is  not  Philosopher 
Bacon's  ''mortal  god  on  earth";  his  king  is  ''but  a 
man  as  I  am,"  doomed  to  drag  out  a  large  part  of 
his  existence  in  the  galling  chains  of  "tradition,  form 
and  ceremonious  duty,"  of  unreaUty  and  self-de- 
ception. 

Shakespeare's  intuitive  power  of  seeing  things  as 
they  are,  affects  his  attitude  to  all  social  convention. 
Not  merely  royal  rulers  of  men  are  in  a  false  position, 
ethically  and  logically.  "Beware  of  appearances," 
is  Shakespeare's  repeated  warning  to  men  and 
women  of  all  ranks  in  the  political  or  social  hierarchy. 
"Put  not  your  trust  in  ornament,  be  it  of  gold  or 
of  silver."  In  the  spheres  of  law  and  reUgion,  the 
dramatist  warns  against  pretence,  against  shows  of 
.virtue,  honesty,  or  courage  which  have  no  sohd 
backing. 

The  world  is  still  deceiv'd  with  ornament. 
In  law  what  plea  so  tainted  and  corrupt 
But,  being  season'd  with  a  gracious  voice. 
Obscures  the  show  of  evil.^     In  religion 
What  damned  error,  but  some  sober  brow 
Will  bless  it  and  approve  it  with  a  text. 
Hiding  the  grossness  with  fair  ornament.'' 
There  is  no  vice  so  simple  but  assumes 
Some  mark  of  virtue  on  his  outward  parts: 
How  many  cowards,  whose  hearts  are  all  as  false 
As  stairs  of  sand,  wear  yet  upon  their  chins 
The  beards  of  Hercules  and  frowning  ]\Iars, 
Who,  inward  searched,  have  livers  white  as  milk. 

— Merchant  of  Venice,  III.,  ii.,  74—86. 

Shakespeare  was  no  cynic.  He  was  not  unduly 
distrustful  of  his  fellow-men.  He  was  not  always 
suspecting  them  of  something  indistinguishable  from 


^ 


THE  DUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE  161 

fraud.  When  he  wrote,  ^^The  world  is  still  deceived 
with  ornament"  which  ^'obscures  the  show  of  evil," 
he  was  expressing  downright  hatred — not  suspicion 
— of  sham,  of  quackery,  of  cant.  His  is  the  message 
of  all  commanding  intellects  which  see  through  the 
hearts  of  men.  Shakespeare's  message  is  Carlyle's 
message  or  Ruskin's  message  anticipated  by  near- 
ly three  centuries,  and  more  potently  and  wisely 
phrased. 

IV 

At  the  same  time  as  Shakespeare  insists  on  the 
highest  and  truest  standard  of  pubUc  duty,  he,  with 
characteristically  practical  insight,  acknowledges  no 
less  emphatically  the  necessity  or  duty  of  obedience 
to  duly  regulated  governments.  There  may  appear 
inconsistency  in  first  conveying  the  impression  that 
governments,  or  their  officers,  are  usually  unworthy 
of  trust,  and  then  in  bidding  mankind  obey  them 
impUcitly.  But,  although  logical  connection  be- 
tween the  two  propositions  be  wanting,  they  are 
each  convincing  in  their  place.  Both  are  the  out- 
come of  a  robust  common-sense.  Order  is  essential 
to  a  nation's  well-being.  There  must  be  discipUne  in 
civiHsed  communities.  Officers  in  authority  must  be 
obeyed.  These  are  the  axiomatic  bases  of  every 
social  contract,  and  no  question  of  the  personal  fit- 
ness of  officers  of  state  impugns  their  stability. 

Twice  does  Shakespeare  define  in  the  same  terms 
what  he  understands  by  the  principle  of  all-com- 
pelling order,  which  is  inherent  in  government. 
Twice  does  he  elaborate  the  argument  that  precise 
orderly  division  of  offices,  each  enjoying  full  and  un- 
questioned authority,  is  essential  to  the  maintenance 
of  a  state's  equilibrium. 


162    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

The  topic  was  first  treated  in  the  speeches  of 
Henry  V.'s  councillors: — 

Exeter,     For  government,  though  high  and  low  and  lower. 
Put  into  parts,  doth  keep  in  one  consent, 
Congreeing  in  a  full  and  natural  close. 
Like  music. 

Cant.  Therefore  doth  heaven  divide 

The  state  of  man  in  divers  functions. 
Setting  endeavour  in  continual  motion; 
To  which  is  fixed,  as  an  aim  or  butt. 
Obedience:  for  so  work  the  honey-bees. 
Creatures  that  by  a  rule  in  nature  teach 
The  act  of  order  to  a  peopled  kingdom. 

— Henry  V.,  I.,  ii.,  ISO-Q. 

There  follows  a  very  suggestive  comparison 
between  the  commonwealth  of  bees  and  the  economy 
of  human  society.  The  well-worn  comparison  has 
been  fashioned  anew  by  a  writer  of  genius  of  our  own 
day,  M.  Maeterlinck. 

In  Troilus  and  Cressida  (I.,  iii.,  85  seq.)  Shake- 
speare returns  to  the  discussion,  and  defines  with 
greater  precision  'Hhe  specialty  of  rule."  There  he 
approaches  nearer  than  anywhere  else  in  his  writings 
the  sphere  of  strict  philosophic  exposition.  He  argues 
that : — 

The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre. 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form. 
Office,  and  custom  in  all  line  of  order. 

Human  society  is  bound  to  follow  this  celestial 
example.  At  all  hazards,  one  must  protect  'Hhe 
unity  and  married  calm  of  states."  Degree,  order, 
discipline,  are  the  only  sure  safeguards  against  brute 
force  and  chaos  which  civilised  institutions  exist  to- 
hold  in  check: — 

How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 


THE  "DUE  OF  BIRTH"  163 

Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores, 
The  primogeniture  and  due  of  birth. 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels. 
But  by  degree  stand  in  authentic  place? 
rPake  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string) 
\And,  hark,  what  discord  follows !)  each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugnancy:  the  bounded  waters 
Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores. 
And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe: 
Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 
And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead: 
Force  should  be  right;  or  rather,  right  and  wrong. 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides, 
Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 
Then  every  thing  includes  itself  in  power. 
Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 
And  appetite,  an  imiversal  wolf. 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power. 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey. 
And  last  eat  up  himself. 

Deprived  of  degree,  rank,  order,  society  dissolves 
itself  in  ''chaos." 

Near  the  end  of  his  career,  Shakespeare  impres- 
sively re-stated  his  faith  in  the  imperative  need  of 
the  due  recognition  of  social  rank  and  grade  in 
civilised  communities.  In  Cymbeline  (IV.,  ii.,  246-9) 
"a,  queen's  son"  meets  his  death  in  fight  with  an  in- 
ferior, and  the  conqueror  is  inclined  to  spurn  the 
lifeless  corpse.  But  a  wise  veteran  solemnly  uplifts 
his  voice  to  forbid  the  insult.  Appeal  is  made  to  the 
sacred  principle  of  social  order,  which  must  be  re- 
spected even  in  death: — 

Though  mean  and  mighty,  rotting 
Together,  make  one  dust;  yet  reverence, — 
That  angel  of  the  world, — doth  make  distinction 
Of  place  'twixt  high  and  low. 

"Reverence,   that  angel  of  the  world,"  is  the   ^ 
ultimate  bond  of  civil  society,  and  can  never  be 


164    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

defied  with  impunity.     It  is  the  saving  sanction  of 
social  order. 

V 

I  have  quoted  some  of  Shakespeare's  avowedly 
ethical  utterances  which  bear  on  conditions  of  civil 
society — on  morals  in  their  social  aspect.  There  is 
no  obscurity  about  their  drift.  Apart  from  ethical 
declaration,  it  may  be  that  ethical  lessons  touching 
political  virtue  as  well  as  other  specific  aspects  of 
morality  are  deducible  from  a  study  of  Shakespeare's 
plots  and  characters.  Very  generous  food  for  reflec- 
tion seems  to  be  offered  the  poHtical  philosopher  by 
the  plots  and  characters  of  Julius  Ccesar  and  Corio- 
lanus.  The  personality  of  Hamlet  is  instinct  with 
ethical  suggestion.  The  story  and  personages  of 
Measure  for  Measure  present  the  most  persistent  of 
moral  problems.  But  discussion  of  the  ethical  im- 
port of  Shakespeare's  several  dramatic  portraits  or 
stories  is  of  doubtful  utility.  There  is  a  genuine 
danger  of  reading  into  Shakespeare's  plots  and 
characters  more  direct  ethical  significance  than  is 
really  there.  Dramatic  art  never  consciously  nor 
systematically  serves  obvious  purposes  of  morality, 
save  to  its  own  detriment. 

Nevertheless  there  is  not  likely  to  be  much  dis- 
agreement with  the  general  assertion  that  Shake- 
speare's plots  and  characters  involuntarily  develop 
under  his  hand  in  conformity  with  the  straight- 
forward requirements  of  moral  law.  He  upholds  the 
broad  canons  of  moral  truth  with  consistency,  even 
with  severity.  There  is  no  mistaking  in  his  works 
on  which  side  lies  the  right.  He  never  renders  vice 
amiable.  His  want  of  dehcacy,  his  challenges  of 
modesty,  need  no  palliation.     It  was  characteristic 


SIL\KESPEARE'S  MORAL  SENSE  165 

of  his  age  to  speak  more  plainly  of  many  topics  about 
which  poHte  Hps  are  nowadays  silent.  But  Shake- 
speare's coarsenesses  do  no  injury  to  the  healthy- 
minded.  They  do  not  encourage  evil  propensities. 
Wickedness  is  always  wickedness  in  Shakespeare, 
and  never  deludes  the  spectator  by  masquerading  as 
something  else.  His  plays  never  present  problems  as 
to  whether  vice  is  not  after  all  in  certain  conditions 
the  sister  of  virtue.  Shakespeare  never  shows  vice 
in  the  twihght,  nor  leaves  the  spectator  or  reader  in 
doubt  as  to  what  its  features  precisely  are.  Vice 
injures  him  who  practises  it  in  the  Shakespearean^ 
world,  and  ultimately  proves  his  ruin.  One  cannot 
play  with  vice  wdth  impunity. 

The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Make  instruments  to  plague  us. 

It  is  not  because  Shakespeare  is  a  conscious 
moraUst,  that  the  wheel  comes  full  circle  in  his 
dramatic  world.  It  is  because  his  sense  of  art  is 
involuntarily  coloured  by  a  profound  conviction  of 
the  ultimate  justice  which  governs  the  operations  of 
human  nature  and  society. 

Shakespeare  argues,  in  effect,  that  a  man  reaps  as 
he  sows.  It  may  be  contended  that  Nature  does  not 
always  work  in  strict  accord  wdth  this  Shakespearean 
canon,  and  that  Shakespeare  thereb}^  shows  himself 
more  of  a  deliberate  moralist  than  Nature  herself. 
But  the  dramatist  ideahses  or  generalises  human  ex- 
perience; he  does  not  reproduce  it  hterally.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  "Shakespearean  canon  that  runs 
directly  counter  to  the  idealised  or  generalised  ex- 
perience of  the  outer  world.  The  mcked  and  the 
foolish,  the  intemperate  and  the  over-passionate, 
reach  in  Shakespeare's  world  that  disastrous  goal, 


166   ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

which  nature  at  large  keeps  in  reserve  for  them  and 
only  by  rare  accident  suffers  them  to  evade.  The 
father  who  brings  up  his  children  badly  and  yet  ex- 
pects every  dutiful  consideration  from  them  is  only 
in  rare  conditions  spared  the  rude  awakening  which 
overwhelms  King  Lear.  The  jealous  husband  who 
wrongly  suspects  his  wife  of  infidelity  commonly 
suffers  the  fate  either  of  Othello  or  of  Leontes. 

VI 

Shakespeare  regards  it  as  the  noblest  ambition  in 
•  man  to  master  his  own  destiny.  There  are  numerous 
passages  in  which  the  dramatist  figures  as  an  absolute 
and  uncompromising  champion  of  the  freedom  of  the 
will.  '^Tis  in  ourselves  that  we  are  thus  or  thus/' 
says  one  of  his  characters,  lago;  ''Our  bodies  are  our 
gardens,  to  the  which  our  wills  are  gardeners." 
Edmond  says  much  the  same  in  King  Lear  when  he 
condemns  as  'Hhe  excellent  foppery  of  the  world" 
the  ascription  to  external  influences  of  all  our  faults 
and  misfortunes,  whereas  they  proceed  from  our 
wilful,  deliberate  choice  of  the  worser  way.  Re- 
peatedly does  Shakespeare  assert  that  we  are  useful 
or  useless  members  of  society  according  as  we  will  it 
ourselves. 

Our  remedies  oft  in  ourselves  do  lie 
Which  we  ascribe  to  heaven;  the  fated  sky 
Gives  us  free  scope, 

says  Helena  in  AlVs  Well  (I.,  i.,  231-3). 

Men  at  some  time  are  masters  of  their  fates, 

says  Cassius  in  Julius  Coesar  (L,  ii.,  139-41); 

The  fault,  dear  Brutus,  is  not  in  our  stars. 
But  in  ourselves  that  we  are  underlings. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  167 

Hereditary  predispositions,  the  accidents  of  environ- 
ment, are  not  insuperable ;  they  can  be  neutralised  by 
force  of  will,  by  character.     Character  is  omnipotent. 

The  self-sufficing,  imperturbable  will  is  the  ideal 
possession,  beside  which  all  else  in  the  world  is  value- 
less. But  the  quest  of  it  is  difficult,  and  success  in 
the  pursuit  is  rare.  Mastery  of  the  will  is  the  result 
of  a  rare  conjunction — a  perfect  commingling  of  blood 
and  judgment.  Without  such  harmonious  union 
man  is  ^'a  pipe" — a  musical  instrument — ''for  For- 
tune's finger  to  sound  what  stop  she  pleases."  Man 
can  only  work  out  his  own  salvation  when  he  can 
control  his  passions  and  can  take  with  equal  thanks 
Fortune's  buffets  or  rewards. 

The  best  of  men  is — 

Spare  in  diet 
Free  from  gross  passion  or  of  mirth  or  anger. 
Constant  in  spirit,  not  swerving  with  the  blood. 

—Henry  V.,  II.,  ii.,  131-3. 

His  is  the  nature 

Whom  passion  could  not  shake — whose  solid  virtue 
The  shot  of  accident  nor  dart  of  chance 
Could  neither  graze  nor  pierce. 

—Othello,  IV.,  i.,  176-9. 

Stability  of  temperament  is  the  finest  fruit  of  the 
free  exercise  of  the  will;  it  is  the  noblest  of  mascu- 
line excellences. 

Give  me  that  man 
That  is  not  passion's  slave,  and  I  will  wear  him 
In  my  heart's  core — ay,  in  my  heart  of  hearts. 

—Hamlet,  III.,  ii.,  76-8. 

In  spite  of  his  many  beautiful  portrayals  of  the 
charms  and  tenderness  and  innocence  of  womanhood, 
Shakespeare  had  less  hope  in  the  ultimate  capacity, 
of  women  to  control  their  destiny  than  in  the  ultimatQ 
capacity  of  men.     The  greatest  of  his  female  crea- 


168    ASPECTS  OF  SHAKESrEARE'S  PHILOSOPHY 

tions,  Lady  Macbeth  and  Cleopatra,  stand  in  a  cat- 
egory of  their  own.  They  do  not  lack  high  power 
of  will,  even  if  they  are  unable  so  to  commingle 
blood  and  judgment  as  to  master  fate. 

Elsewhere,  the  dramatist  seems  to  betray  private 
suspicion  of  the  normal  woman's  volitional  capacity 
by  applying  to  her  heart  and  mind  the  specific 
epithet  ''waxen."  The  feminine  mind  takes  the 
impress  of  its  environment  as  easily  as  wax  takes 
the  impress  of  a  seal.  In  two  passages  where  this 
simile  is  employed,^  the  deduction  from  it  is  pressed 
to  the  furthest  limit,  and  free-will  is  denied  women 
altogether.  Feminine  susceptibility  is  pronounced 
to  be  incurable;  wavering,  impressionable  emotion 
is  a  main  constituent  of  woman's  being;  women  are 
not  responsible  for  the  sins  they  commit  nor  the 
wrongs  they  endure. 

This  is  reactionary  doctrine,  and  one  of  the  few 
points  in  Shakespeare's  ''natural"  philosophy  which 
invites  dissent.  But  he  makes  generous  amends  by 
ascribing  to  women  a  plentiful  supply  of  humour. 
No  writer  has  proclaimed  more  effectively  his  faith 
in  woman's  brilliance  of  wit  nor  in  her  quickness  of 
apprehension. 

•^  For  men  have  marble,  women  waxen  minds. 
And  therefore  are  they  formed  as  marble  will; 
The  weak  oppress'd,  the  impression  of  strange  kinds 
Is  form'd  in  them  by  force,  by  fraud,  or  skill. 
Then  call  them  not  the  authors  of  their  ill, 
No  more  than  wax  shall  be  accounted  evil, 
Wlierein  is  stamp'd  the  semblance  of  a  devil. 

— Lucrece,   1240-6. 

How  easy  it  is  for  the  proper-false 
In  women's  waxen  hearts  to  set  their  forms ! 
Alas !  our  frailty  is  the  cause,  not  we ; 
For,  such  as  we  are  made  of,  such  we  be. 

—Twelfth  Night,  II.,  ii..  31. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  OPTIMISM  169 


VII 

Despite  the  solemnity  which  attaches  to  Shake- 
speare's philosophic  reflections,  he  is  at  heart  an 
optimist  and  a  humorist.  He  combines  with  his 
serious  thought  a  thorough  joy  in  life,  an  irremov- 
able preference  for  the  bright  over  the  dismal  side 
of  things.  The  creator  of  Falstaff  and  Mercutio,  of 
Beatrice  and  the  Princess  in  Lovers  Labour^s  Lost, 
could  hardly  fail  to  set  store  by  that  gaiety  of  spirit 
which  is  the  antidote  to  unreasoning  discontent,  and 
keeps  society  in  good  savour. 

Dost  thou  think,  because  thou  art  virtuous. 
There  shall  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale.^" 

is  the  voice  of  Shakespeare  as  well  as  of  Sir  Toby 
Belch.  The  dramatist  was  at  one  with  Rosalind, 
his  offspring,  when  she  told  Jaques: — 

I  had  rather  have  a  fool  to  make  me  merry. 
Than  experience  to  make  me  sad. 

The  same  sanguine  optimistic  temper  constantly 
strikes  a  more  impressive  note. 

There  is  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil, 
Would  men  observingly  distil  it  out, 

is  a  comprehensive  maxim,  which  sounds  as  if  it 
came  straight  from  Shakespeare's  lips.  This  battle- 
cry  of  invincible  optimism  is  uttered  in  the  play  by  i 
Shakespeare's  favourite  hero,  Henry  V.  It  is  hard 
to  quarrel  with  the  inference  that  these  words  con- 
vey the  ultimate  verdict  of  the  dramatist  on  human 
affairs. 


VIII 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM" 

His  noble  negligences  teach 

What  others'  toils  despair  to  reach. 


Patriotism  is  a  natural  instinct  closely  allied  to  the 
domestic  affections.  Its  normal  activity  is  as  es- 
sential as  theirs  to  the  health  of  society.  But,  in 
a  greater  degree  than  other  instincts,  the  patriotic 
impulse  works  with  perilous  irregularity  unless  it 
be  controlled  by  the  moral  sense  and  the  intellect. 
Every  student  of  history  and  pohtics  is  aware 
how  readily  the  patriotic  instinct,  if  uncontrolled 
by  morality  and  reason,  comes  into  conflict  with 
both.  Freed  of  moral  restraint  it  is  prone  to  en- 
gender a  peculiarly  noxious  brand  of  spurious  sen- 
timent— the  patriotism  of  false  pretence.  Bom- 
bastic masquerade  of  the  genuine  impulse  is  not 
uncommon  among  place-hunters  in  Parliament  and 
popularity-hunters  in  constituencies,  and  the  hon- 
est instinct  is  thereby  brought  into  disrepute.  Dr 
Johnson  was  thinking  solely  of  the  frauds  and  moral 
degradation  which  have  been  sheltered  by  self^ 
seekers  under  the  name  of  patriotism  when  he  none 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  the  CornhUl  Magazine,  May, 
1901. 

170 


THE  PATRIOTIC  INSTINCT  171 

too  pleasantly  remarked:  ''Patriotism  is  the  last 
refuge  of  a  scoundrel." 

The  Doctor's  epigram  hardly  deserves  its  fame. 
It  embodies  a  very  meagre  fraction  of  the  truth. 
While  it  ignores  the  beneficent  effects  of  the  patriotic 
instinct,  it  does  not  exhaust  its  evil  propensities.  It 
is  not  only  the  moral  obliquity  of  place-hunters  or 
popularity-hunters  that  can  fix  on  patriotism  the 
stigma  of  offence.  Its  healthy  development  depends 
on  intellectual  as  well  as  on  moral  guidance.  When 
the  patriotic  instinct,  however  honestly  it  be  cher- 
ished, is  freed  of  intellectual  restraint,  it  works  even 
more  mischief  than  when  it  is  deliberately  coun- 
terfeited. Among  the  empty-headed  it  very  easily 
degenerates  into  an  over-assertive,  a  swollen  selfish- 
ness, which  ignores  or  defies  the  just  rights  and 
feelings  of  those  who  do  not  chance  to  be  their 
fellow-countrymen.  No  one  needs  to  be  reminded 
how  much  wrongdoing  and  cruelty  have  been  en- 
couraged by  perfectly  honest  patriots  who  lack 
''intellectual  armour."  Dr  Johnson  knew  that  the 
blockhead  seeks  the  shelter  of  patriotism  with 
almost  worse  result  to  the  body  politic  than  the 
scoundrel. 

On  the  other  hand,  morality  and  reason  alike 
resent  the  defect  of  patriotism  as  stoutly  as  its 
immoral  or  unintellectual  extravagances.  A  total 
lack  of  the  instinct  implies  an  abnormal  develop- 
ment of  moral  sentiment  or  intellect  which  must  be 
left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  mental  pathologist. 
The  man  who  is  the  friend  of  every  country  but  his 
own  can  only  be  accounted  for  scientifically  as  the 
victim  of  an  aberration  of  mind  or  heart.  Ostenta- 
tious disclaimers  of  the  patriotic  sentiment  deserve 


172  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

as  little  sympathy  as  the  false  pretenders  to  an  exag- 
gerated share  of  it.  A  great  statesman  is  responsible 
for  an  apophthegm  on  that  aspect  of  the  topic  which 
always  deserves  to  be  quoted  in  the  same  breath  as 
Dr  Johnson's  familiar  half-truth.  When  Sir  Francis 
Burdett,  the  Radical  leader  in  the  early  days  of 
the  last  century,  avowed  scorn  for  the  normal  instinct 
of  patriotism,  Lord  John  Russell,  the  leader  of  the 
Liberal  party  in  the  House  of  Commons,  sagely 
retorted:  ''The  honourable  member  talks  of  the 
cant  of  patriotism;  but  there  is  something  worse 
than  the  cant  of  patriotism,  and  that  is  the  recant  of 
patriotism."  ^  Mr  Gladstone  declared  Lord  John's 
repartee  to  be  the  best  that  he  ever  heard. 

It  may  be  profitable  to  consider  how  patriotism, 
which  is  singularly  liable  to  distortion  and  per- 
version, presented  itself  to  the  mind  of  Shakespeare, 
the  clearest-headed  student  of  human  thought  and 
sentiment. 

II 

In  Shakespeare's  universal  survey  of  human 
nature  it  was  impossible  that  he  should  leave 
patriotism  and  the  patriotic  instinct  out  of  account. 
It  was  inevitable  that  prevalent  phases  of  both 
should  frequently  occupy  his  attention.  In  his  role 
of  dramatist  he  naturally  dealt  with  the  topic  in- 
cidentally or  disconnectedly  rather  than  in  the  way 

^  The  pun  on  "  cant  "  and  "  recant  "  was  not  original,  though 
Lord  John's  application  of  it  was.  Its  inventor  seems  to  have 
been  Lady  Townshend,  the  brilliant  mother  of  Charles  Towns- 
hend,  the  elder  Pitt's  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  When  she 
was  asked  if  George  Whitefield,  the  evangelical  preacher,  had 
yet  recanted,  she  replied:  "  No,  he  has  only  been  canting." 


BOLINGBROKE'S  PATRIOTISM  173 

of  definite  exposition ;  but  in  the  result,  his  treatment 
will  probably  be  found  to  be  more  exhaustive  than 
that  of  any  other  English  writer.  The  Shakespear- 
ean drama  is  peculiarly  fertile  in  illustration  of  the 
virtuous  or  beneficent  working  of  the  patriotic  in- 
stinct; but  it  does  not  neglect  the  malevolent  or 
morbid  symptoms  incident  either  to  its  exorbitant  or 
to  its  defective  growth;  nor  is  it  wanting  in  sugges- 
tions as  to  how  its  healthy  development  may  be  best 
ensured.  Part  of  Shakespeare's  message  on  the  sub- 
ject is  so  well  known  that  readers  may  need  an  apol- 
ogy for  reference  to  it;  but  Shakespeare's  declara- 
tions have  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  been  co-ordinated. ^ 

Broadly  speaking,  the  Shakespearean  drama  en- 
forces the  principle  that  an  active  instinct  of  patriot- 
ism promotes  righteous  conduct.  This  principle  Hes 
at  the  root  of  Shakespeare's  treatment  of  history 
and  poUtical  action,  both  English  and  Roman. 
Normal  manifestations  of  the  instinct  in  Shake- 
speare's world  shed  a  gracious  fight  on  life.  But  it  is 
seen  to  work  in  many  ways.  The  patriotic  instinct 
gives  birth  to  various  moods.  It  operates  with  some 
appearance  of  inconsistency.  Now  it  acts  as  a 
spiritual  sedative,  now  as  a  spiritual  stimulant. 

Of  all  Shakespeare's  characters,  it  is  Bolingbroke 
in  Richard  II.  who  betrays  most  effectively  the 
tranquilising  influence  of  patriotism.  In  him  the 
patriotic  instinct  incfines  to  identity  with  the  simple 
spirit  of  domesticity.     It  is  a  magnified  love  for 

^  In  passing  cursorily  over  the  whole  field  I  must  ask  pardon 
for  dwelling  occasionally  on  ground  that  is  in  detached  detail 
sufficiently  well  trodden,  as  well  as  for  neglecting  some  points 
which  require  more  thorough  exploration  than  is  practicable  withii; 
my  present  limits. 


174  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

his  own  hearthstone  —  a  glorified  home-sickness. 
The  very  soil  of  England,  England's  ground,  excites 
in  Bolingbroke  an  overmastering  sentiment  of  de- 
votion. His  main  happiness  in  fife  resides  in  the 
thought  that  England  is  his  mother  and  his  nurse. 
The  patriotic  instinct  thus  exerts  on  a  character 
which  is  naturally  cold  and  unsympathetic  a  soften- 
ing, soothing,  and  purif^dng  sway.  Despite  his  for- 
bidding self-absorption  and  personal  ambition  he 
touches  hearts,  and  rarely  fails  to  draw  tears  when 
he  sighs  forth  the  bald  lines: — 

Where'er  I  wander,  boast  of  this  I  can. 
Though  banished,  yet  a  true-born  Englishman. 

In  such  a  shape  the  patriotic  instinct  may  tend  in 
natures  weaker  than  Bolingbroke's  to  mawkishness 
or  sentimentahty.  But  it  is  incapable  of  active 
offence.  It  makes  for  the  peace  and  goodwill  not 
merely  of  nations  among  themselves,  but  of  the  con- 
stituent elements  of  each  nation  within  itself.  It 
unifies  human  aspiration  and  breeds  social  harmony. 
Very  different  is  the  phase  of  the  patriotic  instinct 
which  is  portrayed  in  the  more  joyous,  more  frank, 
and  more  impulsive  characters  of  Faulconbridge 
the  Bastard  in  the  play  of  King  John,  and  of  the 
iKing  in  Henry  V.  It  is  in  them  an  inexhaustible 
stimulus  to  action.  It  is  never  quiescent,  but  its 
operations  are  regulated  by  morahty  and  reason, 
and  it  finally  induces  a  serene  exaltation  of  temper. 
It  was  a  pardonable  foible  of  Elizabethan  writers 
distinctly  to  identify  with  the  English  character 
this  healthy  energetic  sort  of  patriotism — the  sort  of 
patriotism  to  which  an  atmosphere  of  knavery  or 
folly  proves  fatal. 


FAULCONBRIDGE  AND  HENRY  V.  175 

Faulconbridge  is  an  admirable  embodiment  of  the 
patriotic  sentiment  in  its  most  attractive  guise.  He 
is  a  manly  soldier,  blunt  in  speech,  contemning  sub- 
terfuge, chafing  against  the  dictates  of  political  ex- 
pediency, and  believing  that  quarrels  between  nations 
which  cannot  be  accommodated  without  loss  of  self- 
respect  on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  had  better  be 
fought  out  in  resolute  and  honourable  war.  He  is 
the  sworn  foe  of  the  bully  or  the  braggart.  Cruelty 
is  hateful  to  him.  The  patriotic  instinct  nurtures  in 
him  a  warm  and  generous  humanity.  His  faith  in 
the  future  of  his  nation  depends  on  the  confident 
hope  that  she  will  be  true  to  herself,  to  her  traditions, 
to  her  responsibilities,  to  the  great  virtues;  that  she 
will  be  at  once  courageous  and  magnanimous: — 

Come  the  three  corners  of  the  world  in  arms. 

And  we  shall  shock  them.    Nought  shall  make  us  rue. 

If  England  to  itself  do  rest  but  true. 

Faulconbridge's  patriotism  is  a  vivacious  spur  to 
good  endeavour  in  every  relation  of  Ufe. 

Henry  V.  is  drawn  by  Shakespeare  at  fuller 
length  than  Faulconbridge.  His  character  is  cast 
in  a  larger  mould.  But  his  patriotism  is  of  the  same 
spirited,  wholesome  type.  Though  Henry  is  a  born 
soldier,  he  discourages  insolent  aggression  or  reck- 
less displays  of  prowess  in  fight.  With  greater  em- 
phasis than  his  archbishops  and  bishops  he  insists 
that  his  country's  sword  should  not  be  unsheathed 
except  at  the  bidding  of  right  and  conscience.  At 
the  same  time,  he  is  terrible  in  resolution  when  the 
time  comes  for  striking  blows.  War,  when  it  is 
once  invoked,  must  be  pursued  with  all  possible 
force  and  fury: — 


176  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

In  peace  there's  notliing  so  becomes  a  man 
As  modest  stillness  and  humility. 
But  when  the  blast  of  war  blows  in  his  ears, 
Then  imitate  the  action  of  the  tiger.^ 

But  although  Henry's  patriotic  instinct  can  drive 
him  into  battle,  it  keeps  him  faithful  there  to  the 
paths  of  humanity.  Always  alive  to  the  horrors  of 
war,  he  sternly  forbids  looting  or  even  the  use  of 
insulting  language  to  the  enemy.  It  is  only  when  a 
defeated  enemy  declines  to  acknowledge  the  obvious 
ruin  of  his  fortunes  that  a  sane  and  practical  patriot- 
ism defends  resort  on  the  part  of  the  conqueror  to 
the  grimmest  measure  of  severity.  The  healthy 
instinct  stiffens  the  grip  on  the  justly  won  fruits  of 
victory.  As  soon  as  Henry  V.  sees  that  the  French 
wilfully  deny  the  plain  fact  of  their  overthrow,  he  is 
moved,  quite  consistently,  to  exclaim: — 

What  is  it  then  to  me  if  impious  war, 
Arrayed  in  flames  like  to  the  prince  of  fiends. 
Do  with  his  smirched  complexion  all  fell  feats, 
Enlinked  to  waste  and  desolation? 

The  context  makes  it  clear  that  there  is  no  confusion 
here  between  the  patriotic  instinct  and  mere  belli- 
cose ecstasy. 

The  confusion  of  patriotism  with  militant  aggres- 
siveness is  as  famihar  to  the  Shakespearean  drama 
as  to  the  external  world;  but  it  is  always  exhibited 
by  Shakespeare  in  its  proper  colours.  The  Shake- 
spearean   ''mob,"    unwashed   in    mind    and   body, 

^  On  this  point  the  Shakespearean  oracle  always  speaks  with 
a  decisive  and  practical  note: — 

Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in 
Bear't  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 

— Hamlet,  I.,  iii.,  65-7. 


^'     OF  THC 

UNIVERSITY 
BELLICOSE  ECSTASY  o*"    .,^^     177 

habitually  yields  to  it,  and  justifies  itself  by  a  spe- 
ciousness  of  argument  against  which  a  clean  vision 
rebels.  The  so-called  patriotism  which  seeks  ex- 
pression in  war  for  its  own  sake  is  alone  intelhgible 
to  Shakespeare's  pavement  orators.  ''Let  me  have 
war,  say  I,"  exclaims  the  professedly  patriotic 
spokesman  of  the  ill-conditioned  proletariat  in  Corio- 
lanus;  ''it  exceeds  peace  as  far  as  day  does  night;  it's 
spritely,  waking,  audible,  and  full  of  vent.  Peace  is  a 
very  apoplexy,  lethargy;  mulled,  deaf,  sleepy,  insen- 
sible. .  .  .  Ay,  and  it  makes  men  hate  one  another." 
For  this  distressing  result  of  peace,  the  reason  is  given 
that  in  times  of  peace  men  have  less  need  of  one 
another  than  in  seasons  of  war,  and  the  crude  argu- 
ment closes  mth  the  cry:  "The  wars  for  my  money." 
There  is  irony  in  this  suggestion  of  the  mercantile 
value  of  war  on  the  Ups  of  a  spokesman  of  paupers. 
It  is  solely  the  impulsive  mindless  patriot  who  strains 
after  mere  mihtary  glory. 

Glory  is  like  a  circle  in  the  water. 

Which  never  ceaseth  to  enlarge  itself. 

Till  by  broad  spreading  it  disperse  to  nought. 

— 1   Henry  VI.,  I.,  n.,  133-5. 

No  wise  man  vaunts  in  the  name  of  patriotism 
his  own  nation's  superiority  over  another.  The 
t}^ical  patriot,  Henry  V.,  once  makes  the  conomon 
boast  that  one  Englishman  is  equal  to  three  French- 
men, but  he  apologises  for  the  brag  as  soon  as  it  is 
out  of  his  mouth.  (He  fears  the  air  of  France  has 
demoraUsed  him.) 

Elsewhere  Shakespeare  utters  a  vivacious  warn- 
ing against  the  patriot's  exclusive  claim  for  his 
country  of  natural  advantages,  which  all  the  world 
shares  substantially  alike. 


178  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

Hath  Britain  all  the  sun  that  shines?     Day,  night, 
Are  they  not  but  in  Britain?     I'  the  world's  volume 
Our  Britain  seems  as  of  it,  but  not  in  't; 
In  a  great  pool,  a  swan's  nest:  pr'ythee,  think 
There's  livers  out  of  Britain.^ 

It  is  not  the  wild  hunger  for  war,  but  the  stable 
interests  of  peace  that  are  finally  subserved  in  the 
Shakespearean  world  by  true  and  well-regulated  pa- 
triotism. Henry  V.,  the  play  of  Shakespeare  which 
shows  the  genuine  patriotic  instinct  in  its  most  ener- 
getic guise,  ends  with  a  powerful  appeal  to  France 
and  England,  traditional  foes,  to  cherish  ''neighbour- 
hood and  Christianlike  accord,"  so  that  never  again 
should  ''war  advance  his  bleeding  sword  'twixt 
England  and  fair  France." 

However  whole-heartedly  Shakespeare  rebukes 
the  excesses  and  illogical  pretensions  to  which  the 
lack  of  moral  or  intellectual  discipline  exposes  pa- 
triotism, he  reserves  his  austerest  censure  for  the 
disavowal  of  the  patriotic  instinct  altogether.  One 
of  the  greatest  of  his  plays  is  practically  a  diagnosis 
of  the  perils  which  follow  in  the  train  of  a  wilful 
abnegation  of  the  normal  instinct.  In  Coriolanus 
Shakespeare  depicts  the  career  of  a  man  who  thinks 
that  he  can,  by  virtue  of  inordinate  self-confidence 
and  belief  in  his  personal  superiority  over  the  rest 
of  his  countr5niien,  safely  abjure  and  defy  the  com- 
mon patriotic  instinct,  which,  after  all,  keeps  the 
State  in  being.     "I'll  never,"  says  Coriolanus, 

Be  such  a  gosling  to  obey  instinct,  but  stand 
As  if  a  man  were  author  of  himself. 
And  knew  no  other  kin.- 

Coriolanus  deliberately  suppresses  the  patriotic  in- 
stinct, and,  with  greater  consistency  than  others  who 

^  Cymbeline,  III.,  iv.,  139-43.         ^Coriolanus,  V.,  iii.,  34-7. 


PATRIOTIC  CRITICISM  179 

have  at  times  followed  his  example,  joins  the  fight- 
ing ranks  of  his  country's  enemies  by  way  of  illus- 
trating his  sincerity.  His  action  proves  to  be  in 
conflict  with  the  elementary  condition  of  social 
equihbrium.  The  subversion  of  the  natural  instinct 
is  brought  to  the  logical  issues  of  sin  and  death. 
Domestic  ties  are  rudely  severed.  The  crime  of 
treason  is  risked  with  an  insolence  that  is  fatal 
to  the  transgressor.  With  relentless  logic  does  the 
Shakespearean  drama  condemn  defiance  of  the  nat- 
ural instinct  of  patriotism. 

Ill 

It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  the  patriotic 
instinct  of  the  Shakespearean  gospel  encourages 
blind  adoration  of  state  or  country.  IntelHgent  citi- 
zens of  the  Shakespearean  world  are  never  prohibited 
from  honestly  criticising  the  acts  or  aspirations  of 
their  fellows,  and  from  seeking  to  change  them  when 
they  honestly  think  they  can  be  changed  for  the 
better.  It  is  not  the  business  of  a  discerning  patriot 
to  sing  paeans  in  his  nation's  honour.  His  final  aim 
is  to  help  his  country  to  realise  the  highest  ideals  of 
social  and  pohtical  conduct  which  are  known  to  him, 
and  to  ensure  for  her  the  best  possible  '^  reputation 
through  the  world."  Criticism  conceived  in  a  pa- 
triotic spirit  should  be  constant  and  unflagging. 
The  true  patriot  speaks  out  as  boldly  when  he  thinks 
the  nation  errs  as  when,  in  his  opinion,  she  adds  new 
laurels  to  her  crown.  The  Shakespearean  patriot' 
applies  a  rigorous  judgment  to  all  conditions  of  his 
environment — both  social  and  political. 

Throughout  the  EngHsh  history  plays,   Shake- 
speare bears  convincing  testimony  to  the  right,  and 


180  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

even  to  the  duty,  of  the  patriot  to  exercise  in  all 
seriousness  his  best  powers  of  criticism  on  the  political 
conduct  of  his  fellow-citizens  and  of  those  who  rule 
over  him. 

Shakespeare's  studies  of  English  history  are  ani- 
mated by  a  patriotism  which  boldly  seeks  and  faces 
the  truth.  His  dramatic  presentments  of  Enghsh 
history  have  been  often  described  as  fragments  of  a 
national  epic,  as  detached  books  of  an  English  Iliad. 
But  they  embody  no  epic  or  heroic  glorification  of 
the  nation.  Taking  the  great  series  which  begins 
chronologically  with  King  John  and  ends  with 
Richard  III.  (Henry  VIII.  stands  apart),  we  find 
that  Shakespeare  makes  the  central  features  of  the 
national  history  the  persons  of  the  kings.  Only  in 
the  case  of  Henry  V.  does  he  clothe  an  English  king 
with  any  genuine  heroism.  Shakespeare's  kings  are 
as  a  rule  but  men  as  we  are.  The  violet  smells  to 
them  as  it  does  to  us;  all  their  senses  have  but 
human  conditions;  and  though  their  affections  be 
higher  mounted  than  ours,  yet  when  they  stoop  they 
stoop  with  like  wing.  Excepting  Henry  V.,  the  his- 
tory plays  are  tragedies.  They  ^Hell  sad  stories  of 
the  death  of  kings."  But  they  do  not  merely  illus- 
trate the  crushing  burdens  of  kingship  or  point  the 
moral  of  the  hollo wness  of  kingly  pageantry;  they 
explain  why  kingly  glory  is  in  its  essence  brittle 
rather  than  brilliant.  And  since  Shakespeare's  rulers 
reflect  rather  than  inspire  the  character  of  the  nation, 
we  are  brought  to  a  study  of  the  causes  of  the 
brittleness  of  national  glory. 

The  glory  of  a  nation,  as  of  a  king,  is  only  stable, 
we  learn,  when  the  nation,  as  the  king,  lives  soberly, 
virtuously  and  wisely,  and  is  courageous,  magnan- 


JOHN  OF  GAUNT'S  DYING  SPEECH  181 

imoiis,  and  zealous  after  knowledge.  Cowardice, 
meanness,  ignorance,  and  cruelty  ruin  nations  as  sure- 
ly as  they  ruin  kings.  This  is  the  lesson  specifically 
taught  in  the  most  eloquent  of  all  the  direct  avow- 
als of  patriotism  which  are  to  be  found  in  Shake- 
speare's plays — in  the  d>dng  speech  of  John  of  Gaunt. 
That  speech  is  no  ebulUtion  of  the  undisciplined 
patriotic  instinct.  It  is  a  solemn  announcement  of 
the  truth  that  the  greatness  and  glory,  with  which 
nature  and  history  have  endowed  a  nation,  may  be 
dissipated  when,  on  the  one  hand,  the  rulers  prove 
selfish,  frivolous  and  unequal  to  the  responsibilities 
which  a  great  past  places  on  their  shoulders,  and 
when,  on  the  other  hand,  the  nation  acquiesces  in 
the  depravity  of  its  governors.  In  his  opening  lines, 
the  speaker  lays  emphasis  on  the  possibilities  of 
greatness  with  which  the  natural  physical  conditions 
of  the  country  and  its  poUtical  and  military  tradi- 
tions have  invested  his  countrymen.  Thereby  he 
brings  into  lurid  relief  the  sin  and  the  shame  of 
paltering  ^ith,  of  putting  to  ignoble  uses,  the  national 
character  and  influence.  The  dying  patriot  apos- 
trophises England  in  the  familiar  phrases,  as : — 

This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptred  isle.  .  .  . 

This  fortress,  built  by  nature  for  herself. 

Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war; 

This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world; 

This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea. 

Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall. 

Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house. 

Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands: 

This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 

This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land. 

Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  world. 

— Richard  II.,  II.,  i.,  40-58. 

The  last  line  identifies  with  the  patriotic  instinct  the 


182  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

aspiration  of  a  people  to  deserve  well  of  foreign 
opinion.  Subsequently  the  speaker  turns  from  his 
survey  of  the  ideal  which  he  would  have  his  country 
seek.  He  exposes  with  ruthless  frankness  the  ugly 
realities  of  her  present  degradation. 

England,  bound  in  with  the  triumphant  sea, 
Whose  rocky  shore  beats  back  the  envious  siege 
Of  wat'ry  Neptune,  is  now  bound  in  with  shame. 
With  inky  blots,  and  rotten  parchment  bonds, — 
That  England,  that  was  wont  to  conquer  others. 
Hath  made  a  shameful  conquest  of  itself. 

—Richard  II.,  II.,  i.,  6I-6. 

At  the  moment  the  speaker's  warning  is  scorned,  but 
ultimately  it  takes  effect.  At  the  end  of  the  play  of 
Richard  II.,  England  casts  off  the  ruler  and  his  alUes, 
who  by  their  self-indulgence  and  moral  weakness 
play  false  with  the  traditions  of  the  country. 

In  Henry  V.,  the  only  one  of  Shakespeare's  his- 
torical plays  in  which  an  English  king  quits  the  stage 
in  the  full  enjoyment  of  prosperity,  his  good  fortune 
;  is  more  than  once  explained  as  the  reward  of  his 
'  endeavour  to  abide  by  the  highest  ideals  of  his  race, 
and  of  his  resolve  to  exhibit  in  his  own  conduct  its 
noblest  mettle.  His  strongest  appeals  to  his  fellow- 
countrymen  are: — 

Dishonour  not  your  mothers;  now  attest 

That  those  whom  you  call'd  fathers  did  beget  you; 

Let  us  swear 
That  you  are  worth  your  breeding. 

The  kernel  of  sound  patriotism  is  respect  for  a 
nation's  traditional  repute,  for  the  attested  worth  of 
the  race.  That  is  the  large  lesson  which  Shake- 
speare taught  continuously  throughout  his  career  as 
a  dramatist.  The  teaching  is  not  solely  enshrined 
in  the  poetic  eloquence  either  of  plays  of  his  early 


THE  WARNING  IN  CYMBELINE  183 

years  like  Richard  11. ,  or  of  plays  of  his  middle  life 
like  Henry  V.  It  is  the  last  as  well  as  the  first  word 
in  Shakespeare's  collective  declaration  on  the  true 
character  of  patriotism.  Cymbeline  belongs  to  the 
close  of  his  working  life,  and  there  we  meet  once 
more  the  assurance  that  a  due  regard  to  the  past 
and  an  active  resolve  to  keep  alive  ancestral  virtue 
are  the  surest  signs  of  health  in  the  patriotic  instinct. 
The  accents  of  John  of  Gaunt  were  repeated  by 
Shakespeare  with  little  modulation  at  that  time  of 
his  life  when  his  reflective  power  was  at  its  ripest. 
The  Queen  of  Britain,  Cj^mbehne's  wife,  is  the  per- 
sonage in  whose  mouth  Shakespeare  sets,  not  per- 
haps quite  appropriately,  the  latest  message  in  regard 
to  patriotism  that  he  is  known  to  have  delivered. 
Emissaries  from  the  Emperor  Augustus  have  come 
from  Rome  to  demand  from  the  King  of  Britain  pay- 
ment of  the  tribute  that  JuHus  Csesar  had  long  since 
imposed  on  the  island,  by  virtue  of  a  force  majeure, 
which  is  temporarily  extinguished.  The  pusillani- 
mous King  Cymbeline  is  indisposed  to  put  himself  to 
the  pains  of  contesting  the  claim,  but  the  resolute 
queen  awakens  in  him  a  sense  of  patriotism  and  of 
patriotic  obligation  by  recalling  the  more  nobly  in- 
spired attitude  of  his  ancestors,  and  by  convincing 
him  of  the  baseness  of  ignoring  the  physical  features 
which  had  been  bestowed  by  nature  on  his  domains 
as  a  guarantee  of  their  independence. 

Remember,  sir  my  liege, 
The  kings  your  ancestors,  together  with 
The  natural  bravery  of  your  isle,  which  stands 
As  Neptune's  park,  ribbed  and  paled  in 
With  rocks   unscalable  and  roaring  waters, 
With  sands,  that  will  not  bear  your  enemies'  boats, 
But  suck  them  up  to  the  topmast. 

— Cymbeline,  III.,  i.,  16-22. 


184  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

The  appeal  prevails,  and  the  tribute  is  refused. 
Although  the  evolution  of  the  plot  which  is  based  on 
an  historical  chronicle  compels  the  renewed  acqui- 
escence of  the  British  king  in  the  Roman  tax  at  the 
close  of  the  play,  the  Queen  of  Britain's  spirited 
insistence  on  the  maritime  strength  of  her  country 
loses  little  of  its  significance. 

IV 

Frank  criticism  of  the  social  life  of  the  nation 
is  as  characteristic  of  Shakespearean  drama  as  out- 
spoken exposition  of  its  political  failings.  There  is 
hardly  any  of  Shakespeare's  plays  which  does  not 
offer  shrewd  comment  on  the  foibles  and  errors  of 
contemporary  English  society. 

To  society  Shakespeare's  attitude  is  that  of  a 
humourist,  who  invites  to  reformation  half-jestingly. 
His  bantering  tone,  when  he  turns  to  social  censure, 
strikingly  contrasts  with  the  tragic  earnestness  that 
colours  his  criticism  of  political  vice  or  weakness. 
Some  of  the  national  failings  on  the  social  side  which 
Shakespeare  rebukes  ma}^  seem  tri\dal  at  a  first 
glance.  But  it  is  the  voice  of  prudent  patriotism 
which  prompts  each  count  in  the  indictment.  The 
keenness  of  Shakespeare's  insight  is  attested  by  the 
circumstance  that  every  charge  has  a  modern  ap- 
plication.    None  is  yet  quite  out  of  date. 

Shakespeare  rarely  missed  an  opportunity  of 
betraying  contempt  for  the  extravagances  of  his 
countrymen  and  countrywomen  in  regard  to  dress. 
Portia  says  of  her  English  suitor  Faulconbridge,  the 
young  baron  of  England:  '^How  oddly  he  is  suited! 
I  think  he  bought  his  doublet  in  Italy,  his  round  hose 


SOCIAL  FOIBLES  185 

in  France,  his  bonnet  in  Germany,  and  his  behaviour 
everjnyhere."  Another  faihng  in  Enghshmen,  which 
Portia  detects  in  her  Enghsh  suitor,  is  a  total  igno- 
rance of  any  language  but  his  o^ti.  She,  an  Italian 
lady,  remarks:  ''You  know  I  say  nothing  to  him, 
for  he  imderstands  not  me  nor  I  him.  He  hath 
neither  Latin,  French,  nor  Italian.  He  is  a  proper 
man's  picture,  but,  alas!  who  can  converse  with  a 
dumb  show."  This  moving  plaint  draws  attention 
to  a  defect  which  is  not  yet  supplied.  There  are  few 
Englishmen  nowadays  who,  on  being  challenged  to 
court  Portia  in  Italian,  would  not  cut  a  sorry  figure 
in  dumb  show — sorrier  figures  than  Frenchmen  or 
Germans.  No  true  patriot  ought  to  ignore  the  fact 
or  to  direct  attention  to  it  with  complacency. 

Again,  Shakespeare  was  never  unmindful  of  the 
intemperate  habits  of  his  compatriots.  When  lago 
sings  a  verse  of  the  song  beginning,  ''And  let  me  the 
cannikin  clink,"  and  ending,  "Why  then  let  a  soldier 
drink,"  Cassio  commends  the  excellence  of  the  ditty. 
Thereupon  lago  explains:  "I  learned  it  in  England, 
where  indeed,  they  are  most  potent  in  potting :  Your 
Dane,  your  German,  and  your  swag-bellied  Hollander 
— Drink,  ho! — are  nothing  to  your  English."  Cassio 
asks:  "Is  your  Englishman  so  expert  in  his  drink- 
ing?" lago  retorts:  "WTiy,  he  drinks  you,  with 
facility,  your  Dane  dead  drunk,"  and  gains,  the 
speaker  explains,  easy  mastery  over  the  German 
and  the  Hollander. 

A  further  stroke  of  Shakespeare's  social  criticism 
hits  the  thoughtless  pursuit  of  novelty,  which  in- 
fected the  nation  and  found  vent  in  Shakespeare's 
day  in  the  patronage  of  undignified  shows  and  sports. 
When  Trinculo,  perplexed  by  the  outward  aspect  of 


186  SHAKESPEARE  AND  PATRIOTISM 

the  hideous  Cahban,  mistakes  him  for  a  fish,  he  re- 
marks: ''Were  I  in  England  now,  as  once  I  was,  and 
had  but  this  fish  painted,  not  a  hoUday  fool  there 
but  would  give  a  piece  of  silver:  there  would  this 
monster  make  a  man ;  any  strange  beast  there  makes 
a  man:  when  they  will  not  give  a  doit  to  relieve  a 
lame  beggar,  they  will  lay  out  ten  to  see  a  dead 
Indian.'^ 

Shakespeare  seems  slyly  to  confess  a  personal 
conviction  of  defective  balance  in  the  popular  judg- 
ment when  he  makes  the  first  grave-digger  remark 
that  Hamlet  was  sent  into  England  because  he  was 
mad. 

"He  shall  recover  his  wits  there,"  the  old  clown 
suggests,  ''or  if  he  do  not,  'tis  no  great  matter  there." 

"Why?"  asks  Hamlet. 

'"Twill  not  be  seen  in  him  there;  there  the  men 
are  as  mad  as  he." 

So,  too,  in  the  emphatically  patriotic  play  of 
Henry  V.,  Shakespeare  implies  that  he  sees  some 
purpose  in  the  Frenchman's  jibes  at  the  foggy,  raw, 
and  dull  climate  of  England,  which  engenders  in  its 
inhabitants,  the  Frenchman  argues,  a  frosty  temper- 
ament, an  imgenial  coldness  of  blood.  Nor  does  the 
dramatist  imply  dissent  from  the  French  marshal's 
suggestion  that  Englishmen's  great  meals  of  beef 
impair  the  efficiency  of  their  intellectual  armour. 
The  point  of  the  reproof  is  not  blunted  by  the  sub- 
sequent admission  of  a  French  critic  in  the  same 
scene  to  the  effect  that,  however  robustious  and 
rough  in  manner  Englishmen  may  be,  they  have 
the  unmatchable  courage  of  the  English  breed  of 
mastiffs.  To  credit  men  with  the  highest  virtues  of 
which  dogs  are  capable  is  a  grudging  compliment. 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  PATRIOTISM      187 


V 

To  sum  up.  The  Shakespearean  drama  enjoins 
those  who  love  their  country  wisely  to  neglect  no 
advantage  that  nature  offers  in  the  way  of  resisting 
unjust  demands  upon  it;  to  remember  that  her 
prosperity  depends  on  her  command  of  the  sea, — 
of  ''the  silver  sea,  which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a 
wall,  or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house  against  the 
envy  of  less  happier  lands";  to  hold  firm  in  the 
memory  ''the  dear  souls"  who  have  made  "her 
reputation  through  the  world";  to  subject  at  need 
her  faults  and  frailties  to  criticism  and  rebuke;  and 
finally  to  treat  with  disdain  those  in  places  of  power, 
who  make  of  no  account  their  responsibilities  to  the 
past  as  well  as  to  the  present  and  the  future.  The 
political,  social,  and  physical  conditions  of  his 
country  have  altered  since  Shakespeare  lived.  Eng- 
land has  ceased  to  be  an  island-power.  The  people 
rule  instead  of  the  king.  Social  responsibilities 
are  more  widely  acknowledged.  But  the  drama- 
tist's doctrine  of  patriotism  has  lost  little  of  its 
pristine  vitality,  and  is  relevant  to  current  affairs. 


IX 

A  PERIL  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN 
RESEARCH  ' 

For  some  years  past  scarcely  a  month  passes  without 
my  receipt  of  a  communication  from  a  confiding 
stranger,  to  the  effect  that  he  has  discovered  some 
piece  of  information  concerning  Shakespeare  which 
has  hitherto  eluded  research.  Very  often  has  a  cor- 
respondent put  himself  to  the  trouble  of  forwarding 
a  photograph  of  the  title-page  of  a  late  sixteenth  or 
early  seventeenth  century  book,  on  which  has  been 
scrawled  in  old-fashioned  script  the  familiar  name  of 
William  Shakespeare.  At  intervals,  which  seem  to 
recur  with  mathematical  regularity,  I  receive  intelli- 
gence that  a  portrait  of  the  poet,  of  which  nothing  is 
hitherto  known,  has  come  to  light  in  some  recondite 
corner  of  England  or  America,  and  it  is  usually  added 
that  a  contemporary  inscription  settles  all  doubt  of 
authenticity.  ^i 

I  wish  to  speak  with  respect"  and  gratitude  of 
these  confidences.  I  welcome  them,  and  have  no 
wish  to  repress  them.  But  truth  does  not  permit 
me  to  affirm  that  such  as  have  yet  reached  me  have 
done  more  than  enlarge  my  conception  of  the  scope 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  The  Author,  October,  1903. 

188 


GEORGE  PEELE'S  ALLEGED  LETTER   189 

of  human  credulity.  I  look  forward  to  the  da}'  when 
the  postman  shall,  through  the  generosit}^  of  some 
appreciative  reader  of  mj^  biography  of  Shakespeare, 
dehver  at  my  door  an  autograph  of  the  dramatist  of 
which  nothing  has  been  heard  before,  or  a  genuine 
portrait  of  contemporary  date,  the  existence  of  which 
has  never  been  suspected.  But  up  to  the  moment 
of  writing,  despite  the  good  intentions  of  my  cor- 
respondents, no  experience  of  the  kind  has  befallen 
me. 

There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  frequency 
"with  which  correspondents,  ob\dously  of  unblem- 
ished character  and  most  generous  instinct,  send  me 
almost  tearful  expressions  of  regret  that  I  should 
have  hitherto  ignored  one  particular  document, 
which  throws  (in  their  eyes)  a  curious  gleam  on  the 
dramatist's  private  life.  At  least  six  times  a  year 
am  I  reminded  how  it  is  recorded  in  more  than  one 
obscure  eighteenth-century  periodical  that  the  dram- 
atist, George  Peele,  wrote  to  his  friend  Marie  or 
Marlowe,  in  an  extant  letter,  of  a  merry  meeting 
which  was  held  at  a  place  called  the  '^  Globe." 
Whether  the  rendezvous  were  tavern  or  playhouse 
is  left  undetermined.  The  assembled  company,  I 
am  assured,  included  not  merely  Edward  Alleyn  the 
actor,  and  Ben  Jonson,  but  Shakespeare  himself. 
Together  these  celebrated  men  are  said  to  have  dis- 
cussed a  passage  in  the  new  play  of  Hamlet.  The 
reported  talk  is  at  the  best  tame  prattle.  Yet,  if 
Shakespeare  be  anj^where  revealed  in  unconstrained 
intercoiu"se  vAih.  professional  associates,  no  biog- 
rapher deserves  pardon  for  overlooking  the  revela- 
tion, however  disappointing  be  its  purport. 

Unfortunately  for  this  neglected  intelligence,  the 


190    A  PERIL  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN  RESEARCH 

letter  in  question  is  an  eighteenth-centur}"  fabrica- 
tion. It  is  a  forgery  of  no  intrinsic  brilliance  or  wit. 
It  bears  on  its  dull  face  marks  of  guilt  which  could 
only  escape  the  notice  of  the  uninformed.  It  is  not 
likely  to  mislead  the  critical.  Nevertheless  it  has 
deceived  many  an  uncritical  reader,  and  has  con- 
stantly found  its  way  into  print  without  meeting 
serious  confutation.  It  may  therefore  be  worth 
while  setting  its  true  origin  and  subsequent  history 
on  record.  No  endeavour  is  likely  in  all  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  to  prevent  an  occasional  resurrec- 
tion of  the  meagre  spectre ;  but  at  present  it  appears 
to  walk  in  various  quarters  quite  unimpeded,  and 
an  endeavour  to  lay  it  may  not  be  without  its  uses. 


II 

Through  the  first  half  of  1763  there  was  published 
in  London  a  monthly  magazine  called  the  Theatrical 
Review,  or  Annals  of  the  Drama,  an  anonymous 
miscellany  of  dramatic  biography  and  criticism.  It 
was  a  colourless  contribution  to  the  journalism  of  the 
day,  and  lacked  powers  of  endurance.  It  ceased 
at  the  end  of  six  months.  The  six  instalments  were 
re-issued  as  ''Volume  I."  at  the  end  of  June  1763; 
but  that  volume  had  no  successor.  ^ 

All  that  is  worth  noting  of  the  Theatrical  Review 
of  1763  now  is  that  among  its  contributors  was  an 
extremely  interesting  personality.     He  was  a  young 

^  Other  independent  publications  of  similar  character  appeared 
under  the  identical  title  of  The  Theatrical  Review  both  in  1758 
and  1772.  The  latter  collected  the  ephemeral  dramatic  criticisms 
of  John  Potter,  a  well-known  writer  for  the  stage. 


GEORGE  STEEVENS  191 

man  of  good  education  and  independent  means,  who 
had  chambers  in  the  Temple,  and  was  enthusiastically 
applying  himself  to  a  study  of  Shakespeare  and 
Elizabethan  dramatic  literature.  His  name,  George 
Steevens,  acquired  in  later  years  world-wide  fame 
as  that  of  the  most  learned  of  Shakespearean  com- 
mentators. Of  the  real  value  of  Steevens's  scholar- 
ship no  question  is  admissible,  and  his  reputation 
justly  grew  with  his  years.  Yet  Steevens's  temper 
was  singularly  perverse  and  mischievous.  His  con- 
fidence in  his  own  powers  led  him  to  contemn  the 
powers  of  other  people.  He  enjoyed  nothing  so 
much  as  mystifying  those  who  were  engaged  in  the 
same  pursuits  as  himself,  and  his  favourite  method 
of  mystification  was  to  announce  anonymously  the 
discovery  of  documents  which  owed  all  their  existence 
to  his  own  ingenuity.  This,  he  admitted,  was  his 
notion  of  ''fun."  Whenever  the  whim  seized  him, 
he  would  in  gravest  manner  reveal  to  the  Press,  or 
even  contrive  to  bring  to  the  notice  of  a  learned 
society,  some  alleged  rehc  in  manuscript  or  in  stone 
which  he  had  deliberately  manufactured.  His  sole 
aim  was  to  recreate  himself  with  laughter  at  the 
perplexity  that  such  unholy  pranks  aroused.  It  is 
one  of  these  Puck-Uke  tricks  on  Steevens's  part  that 
has  spread  confusion  among  those  of  my  corre- 
spondents, who  allege  that  Peele  has  handed  down  to 
us  a  personal  reminiscence  of  the  great  dramatist. 

The  Theatrical  Review,  in  its  second  number, 
offered  an  anonymous  biography  of  the  great  actor 
and  theatrical  manager  of  Shakespeare's  day,  Ed- 
ward Alleyn.  This  biography  was  clearly  one  of 
Steevens's  earliest  efforts.  It  is  for  the  most  part  an 
innocent  compilation.     But  it  contains  one  passage 


192    A  PERIL  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN  RESEARCH 

in  its  author's  characteristic  vein  of  mischief.  Mid- 
way in  the  essay  the  reader  is  solemnly  assured  that 
a  brand-new  contemporary  reference  to  Alleyn's 
eminent  associate  Shakespeare  was  at  his  disposal. 
The  new  story  '^ carries  with  it"  (asserts  the  writer) 
''all  the  air  of  probability  and  truth,  and  has  never 
been  in  print  before."  ''A  gentleman  of  honour  and 
veracity,"  run  the  next  sentences,  which  were  de- 
signed to  put  the  unwary  student  off  his  guard,  ''in 
the  commission  of  the  peace  for  Middlesex,  has  shown 
us  a  letter  dated  in  the  year  1600,  which  he  assures 
us  has  been  in  the  possession  of  his  family,  by  tji^*^ 
mother's  side,  for  a  long  series  of  years,  and  which 
bears  all  the  marks  of  antiquity."  The  superscrip- 
tion was  interpreted  to  run:  "For  Master  Henrie 
Marie,  livynge  at  the  sygne  of  the  rose  by  the  palace." 
There  follows  at  length  the  paper  of  which  the 
family  of  the  honourable  and  veracious  gentleman 
"in  the  commission  of  the  peace  for  Middlesex" 
had  become  possessed  "by  the  mother's  side."  The 
words  were  these: — 

"Friende  Marle, 

"I  must  desyre  that  my  syster  hyr 
watche,  and  the  cookerie  booke  you  promysed,  may 
be  sent  by  the  man.  I  never  longed  for  thy  company 
more  than  last  night ;  we  were  all  very  merrye  at  the 
Globe,  when  Ned  AllejTi  did  not  scruple  to  affyrme 
pleasantely  to  thy  friend  Will,  that  he  had  stolen  his 
speech  about  the  qualityes  of  an  actor's  excellencye, 
in  Hamlet  hys  tragedye,  from  conversations  many- 
fold  which  had  passed  between  them,  and  opinyons 
given  by  Allen  touchinge  the  subject.  Shakespeare 
did  not  take  this  talke  in  good  sorte ;  but  Jonson  put 
an  end  to  the  stryfe  with  wittielie  saying:  "This 
affaire  needeth  no  contentione;  you  stole  it  from 


CLUMSINESS  OF  THE  FORGERY  193 

Ned,  no  doubt;  do  not  marvel;  have  you  not  seen 
him  act  tymes  out  of  number"? 
''Beheve  me  most  syncereUe, 

''Harrie, 

^'Thyne, 

''G.  Peel." 

The  text  of  this  strangely-spelt,  strangely-worded 
Epistle,  with  its  puny  efforts  at  a  jest,  was  succeeded 
by  a  suggestion  that  '^G.  Peel,"  the  alleged  signatory, 
could  be  none  other  than  George  Peele,  the  drama- 
tist, who  achieved  reputation  in  Shakespeare's  early 
days,  and  was  an  industrious  collector  of  anecdotes. 

Thus  the  impish  Steevens  baited  his  hook.  The 
sport  which  followed  must  have  exceeded  his  ex- 
pectations. Any  one  famiUar  with  the  bare  outline 
of  Ehzabethan  Hterary  history  should  have  perceived 
that  a  trap  had  been  set.  The  letter  was  assigned 
to  the  year  1600.  Shakespeare's  play  of  Hamlet,  to 
the  performance  of  which  it  unconcernedly  refers, 
was  not  produced  before  1602;  at  that  date  George 
Peele  had  lain  full  four  years  in  his  grave.  Peele 
could  never  have  passed  the  portals  of  the  theatre 
called  the  ''Globe";  for  it  was  not  built  until  1599. 
No  historic  tavern  of  the  name  is  known.  The  sur- 
name of  the  person,  to  whom  the  letter  was  pretend- 
ed to  have  been  addressed,  is  suspicious.  ''Marie" 
was  one  way  of  spelling  "Marlowe"  at  a  period  when 
forms  of  surnames  varied  with  the  caprice  of  the 
writer.  The  great  dramatist,  Christopher  Marie,  or 
Marloe,  or  Marlowe,  had  died  in  1593.  "Henrie 
Marie"  is  counterfeit  coinage  of  no  doubtful  stamp. 

The  language  and  the  style  of  the  letter  are  un- 
deserving of  serious  examination.  They  are  of  a  far 
later  period  than  the  Elizabethan  age.     They  cannot 


194    A  PERIL  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN  RESEARCH 

be  dated  earlier  than  1763.  Safel}^  might  the  heavi- 
est odds  be  laid  that  in  no  year  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  ^'did  friende  Marie  promyse  G.  Peel  his 
syster  that  he  would  send  h^T  watche  and  the  cook- 
erie  book  by  the  man,"  or  that  ''Ned  Allejni  made 
pleasante  affirmation  to  G.  Peel  of  friend  Will's  theft 
of  the  speech  in  Hamlet  concerning  an  actor's  ex- 
cellency e." 

From  top  to  toe  the  imposture  is  obvious.  But 
the  general  reader  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
confiding,  unsuspicious,  greedy  of  novel  information. 
The  description  of  the  source  of  the  document 
seemed  to  him  precise  enough  to  silence  doubt. 


Ill 


The  Theatrical  Review  of  1673  succeeded  in 
launching  the  fraud  on  a  quite  triumphal  progress. 
Again  and  again,  as  the  century  advanced,  was  G. 
Peel's  declaration  to  ''friende  Marie"  paraded,  with- 
out hint  of  its  falsity,  before  snappers-up  of  Shake- 
spearean trifles.  Seven  years  after  its  first  pubHca- 
tion,  the  epistle  found  admission  in  a  slightly  altered 
setting  to  so  reputable  a  periodical  as  the  Annual 
Register.  Burke  was  still  directing  that  useful  pub- 
lication, and  whatever  information  the  Register 
shielded,  was  reckoned  to  be  of  veracity.  "G.  Peel" 
and  "friende  Marie"  were  there  in  the  year  1770, 
suffered  to  exchange  their  confidences  in  the  most 
honourable  environment. 

Another  seven  years  passed,  and  in  1777  there 
appeared  an  ambitious  work  of  reference,  entitled 
Biographia  Literaria,  or  a  Biographical   History  of 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  FRAUD  195 

Literature,  which  gave  its  author,  John  Berkenhout, 
a  free-thinking  physician,  his  chief  claim  to  re- 
membrance. Steevens  was  a  friend  of  Berkenhout, 
and  helped  liim  in  the  preparation  of  the  book.  Into 
his  account  of  Shakespeare,  the  credulous  physician 
introduced  quite  honestly  the  fourteen-year  old 
forgery.  The  reputed  date  of  1600,  which  the  sup- 
posititious justice  of  the  peace  had  given  it  in  the 
Theatrical  Review,  was  now  suppressed.  Berkenhout 
confined  his  comment  to  the  halting  reminiscence: 
''Whence  I  copied  this  letter  I  do  not  recollect;  but 
I  remember  that  at  the  time  of  transcribing  it,  I  had 
no  doubt  of  its  authenticity." 

Thrice  had  the  trick  been  worked  effectively  in 
conspicuous  places  before  Steevens  died  in  1800. 
But  the  evil  that  he  did  lived  after  him,  and  within 
a  year  of  his  death  the  imposture  renewed  its  j^outh. 
A  correspondent,  who  concealed  his  identity  under 
the  signature  of  ''Grenovicus"  (i.e.,  of  Greenwich), 
sent  Peel's  letter  in  1801  to  the  Gentleman^s  Maga- 
zine, a  massive  repertory  of  useful  knowledge.  There 
it  was  duly  reprinted  in  the  nmnber  for  June.  "  Gren- 
ovicus"  had  the  assurance  to  claim  the  letter  as  his 
own  discovery.  ''To  my  knowledge,"  he  wrote,  "it 
has  never  yet  appeared  in  print."  He  refrained 
from  indicating  how  he  had  gained  access  to  it,  but 
congratulated  himself  and  the  readers  of  the  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  on  the  valiant  feast  that  he  pro- 
vided for  them.  His  action  was  apparently  taken 
by  the  readers  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  at  his 
own  valuation. 

Meanwhile  the  discerning  critic  was  not  alto- 
gether passive.  Isaac  D' Israeli  denounced  the  fraud 
in  his  Curiosities  of  Literature;  but  he  and  others  did 


196   A  PERIL  OF  SHAKESPEAREAN  RESEARCH 

their  protesting  gently.  The  fraud  looked  to  the 
expert*  too  shamefaced  to  merit  a  vigorous  on- 
slaught. He  imagined  the  spurious  epistle  must 
die  of  its  own  inanity.  In  this  he  miscalculated 
the  credulity  of  the  general  reader.  ^^Grenovicus" 
of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  had  numerous  disciples. 

Many  a  time  during  the  past  century  has  his 
exploit  been  repeated.  Even  so  acute  a  scholar  as 
Alexander  Dyce  thought  it  worth  while  to  reprint 
the  letter  in  1829  in  the  first  edition  of  his  collected 
works  of  George  Peele  (Vol.  I.,  page  111),  although  he 
declined  to  pledge  himself  to  its  authenticity.  The 
latest  historian  of  Dulwich  College  ^  has  admitted  it 
to  his  text  with  too  mildly  worded  a  caveat.  Often 
more  recently  has  "G.  Peel"  emerged  from  seclusion 
to  darken  the  page  of  a  modern  popular  magazine. 
I  have  met  him  unabashed  during  the  present  century 
in  two  literary  periodicals  of  repute — in  the  Academy 
(of  London),  in  the  issue  of  the  18th  of  January, 
1902,  and  in  the  Poet  Lore  (of  Philadelphia),  in  the 
following  April  number.  Future  disinterments  may 
safely  be  prophesied.  In  the  jungle  of  the  Annual 
Register  or  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  the  forgery 
lurks  unchallenged,  and  there  will  always  be  inex- 
perienced explorers,  who  from  time  to  time  will  run 
the  unhallowed  thing  to  earth  there,  and  bring  it 
forth  as  a  new  and  unsuspected  truth. 

Perhaps  forgery  is  too  big  a  word  to  apply  to 
Steevens's  concoction.  Others  worked  at  later  peri- 
ods on  lines  of  mystification  similar  to  his;  but,  un- 
like his  disciples,  he  did  not  seek  from  his  misdirected 
ingenuity  pecuniary  gain  or  even  notoriety.  He 
never  set  his  name  to  this  invention  of  '^Peel"  and 

^  William  Young's  History  of  Dulwich  College,  1889,  II.,  4fl-2. 


A  WARNING  TO  THE  UNWARY  197 

''Marie,"  and  their  insipid  chatter  about  Hamlet  at 
the  ''Globe."  Steevens's  sole  aim  was  to  delude 
the  unwary.  It  is  difficult  to  detect  humour  in  the 
endeavour.  But  the  perversity  of  the  human  in- 
tellect has  no  limits.  This  ungainly  example  of  it 
is  only  worth  attention  because  it  has  sailed  under 
its  false  colours  without  very  serious  molestation 
for  one  hundred  and  forty-three  years. 


X 

SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 


Nothing  but  good  can  come  of  a  comparative  study 
of  English  and  French  Uterature.  The  political  inter- 
course of  the  two  countries  has  involved  them  in  an 
endless  series  of  broils.  But  between  the  literatures 
of  the  two  countries  friendly  relations  have  sub- 
sisted for  over  five  centuries.  In  the  literary  sphere 
the  interchange  of  neighbourly  civilities  has  known 
no  interruption.  The  same  literary  forms  have  not 
appealed  to  the  tastes  of  the  two  nations;  but  differ- 
ences of  aesthetic  temperament  have  not  prevented 
the  literature  of  the  one  from  levjdng  substantial 
loans  on  the  literature  of  the  other,  and  that  with  a 
freedom  and  a  frequency  which  were  calculated  to 
breed  discontent  between  any  but  the  most  cordial 
of  allies.  While  the  Hterary  geniuses  of  the  two 
nations  have  pursued  independent  ideals,  they  have 
viewed  as  welcome  courtesies  the  willingness  and 
readiness  of  the  one  to  borrow  sustenance  of  the 
other  on  the  road.  It  is  unlikely  that  any  full  or 
formal  balance-sheet  of  such  lendings  and  borrowings 

^  This   paper  was   first  printed  in   The   Nineteenth   Century, 
June,  1899. 
198 


LITERARY  RELATIONS  199 

will  ever  be  forthcoming,  for  it  is  felt  instinctively 
by  literary  accountants  and  their  cHents  on  both 
shores  of  the  EngUsh  Channel  that  the  debts  on 
the  one  side  keep  a  steady  pace  with  the  debts  on 
the  other,  and  there  is  no  balance  to  be  collected. 

No  recondite  research  is  needed  to  estabhsh 
this  general  view  of  the  situation.  It  is  well  known 
how  the  poetic  career  of  Chaucer,  the  earliest  of 
great  English  poets,  was  begun  under  French  masters. 
The  greatest  poem  of  mediaeval  France,  the  Roman 
de  la  Rose,  was  turned  into  Enghsh  by  his  youthful 
pen,  and  the  chief  French  poet  of  the  day,  Eustace 
Deschamps,  held  out  to  him  the  hand  of  fellowship 
in  the  enthusiastic  balade,  in  which  he  apostrophised 
"  le  grand  translateur,  noble  Geoffroi  Chaucer." 
Following  Chaucer's  example,  the  great  poets  of 
Elizabeth's  reign  and  of  James  the  First's  reign  most 
liberally  and  most  hterally  assimilated  the  verse  of 
their  French  contemporaries,  Ronsard,  Du  Bellay^ 
and  Desportes.^  Early  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
Frenchmen  returned  the  compliment  by  naturaUsing 
in  French  translations  the  prose  romances  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  and  Robert  Greene,  the  philosophical 
essays  of  Bacon,  and  the  ethical  and  theological 
writings  of  Bishop  Joseph  Hall.  From  the  acces- 
sion of  Charles  the  Second  until  that  of  George 
the  Third,  the  English  drama  framed  itself  on 
French  models,  and  Pope,  who  long  filled  the  throne 

^  In  the  Introduction  to  a  collection  of  Elizabethan  Sonnets, 
published  in  Messrs  Constable's  re-issue  of  Arber's  English 
Garner  (1904),  the  present  writer  has  shown  that  numerous  son- 
nets, which  Elizabethan  writers  issued  as  orijjinal  poems,  were 
literal  translations  from  the  French  of  Ronsard,  Du  Bellay,  and 
Desportes.  Numerous  loans  of  like  character  were  levied  silently 
on  manv  Italian  authors. 


200  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

of  a  literary  dictator  in  England,  acknowledged  dis- 
cipleship  to  Boileau.  A  little  later  the  literary 
philosophers  of  France — Rousseau  and  the  Encyclo- 
pedistes — drew  nutrition  from  the  writings  of  Hobbes 
and  Locke.  French  novel-readers  of  the  eighteenth 
century  found  their  chief  joy  in  the  tearful  emotions 
excited  by  the  sentimentalities  of  Richardson  and 
Sterne.  French  novel-writers  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ago  had  small  chance  of  recognition  if 
they  disdained  to  traffic  in  the  lachrymose  wares 
which  the  English  noveUsts  had  brought  into  fashion. 

At  the  present  moment  the  cultured  Englishman 
finds  his  most  palatable  fiction  in  the  publications 
of  Paris.  Within  recent  memory  the  English  play- 
goer viewed  with  impatience  any  theatrical  pro- 
gramme which  lacked  a  Parisian  flavour.  The  late 
Sir  Henry  Irving,  who,  during  the  past  generation, 
sought  to  sustain  the  best  traditions  of  the  English 
drama,  produced  in  his  last  years  two  original 
plays,  Robespierre  and  Dante,  by  the  doyen  of  living 
French  dramatists,  M.  Sardou.  Complementary 
tendencies  are  visible  across  the  Channel.  The 
French  stage  often  offers  as  cordial  a  reception  to 
plays  of  EngHsh  manufacture  as  is  offered  in  London 
to  the  plays  derived  from  France.  No  histrionic 
event  attracts  higher  interest  in  Paris  than  the 
assumption  by  a  great  actor  or  actress  of  a  Shake- 
spearean role  for  the  first  time ;  and  French  dramatic 
critics  have  been  known  to  generate  such  heat  in 
debates  over  the  right  conception  of  a  Shakespearean 
character  that  their  differences  have  required  ad- 
justment at  the  sword's  point. 

Of  greater  interest  is  it  to  note  that  in  all  the 
cultivated  centres  of  France  a  new  and  unparalleled 


FRENCH  STUDY  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE     201 

energy  is  devoted  to-day  to  the  study  of  English 
Hterature  of  both  the  present  and  the  past.  The 
research  recentty  expended  on  the  topic  by  French 
scholars  has  not  been  excelled  in  Germany,  and  has 
rarely  been  equalled  in  England.  Critical  biograph- 
ies of  James  Thomson  (of  The  Seasons),  of  Burns,  of 
Young,  and  of  Wordsworth  have  come  of  late  from 
the  pens  of  French  professors  of  EngUsh  literature, 
and  their  volumes  breathe  a  minute  accuracy  and 
a  fulness  of  sj^mpathetic  knowledge  which  are  cer- 
tainly not  habitual  to  English  professors  of  Eng- 
Ush literature.  This  scholarly  movement  in  France 
shows  signs  of  rapid  extension.  Each  summer  vaca- 
tion sees  an  increase  in  the  number  of  French  visitors 
to  the  British  Museum  reading-room,  who  are  en- 
gaged on  recondite  researches  into  EngUsh  literary 
history.  The  new  zeal  of  Frenchmen  for  English 
studies  claims  the  most  cordial  acknowledgment  of 
English  scholars,  and  it  is  appropriate  that  the 
most  coveted  lectureship  on  EngUsh  Uterature  in  an 
EngUsh  University — the  Clark  lectureship  at  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge  —  should  have  been  bestowed 
last  year  on  the  learned  professor  of  English  at  the 
Sorbonne,  M.  Beljame,  author  of  Le  Public  et  les 
Homines  de  Lettres  en  Angleterre  au  XV IIP  Siecle. 
M.  Beljame's  unexpected  death  (on  September  17, 
1906),  shortly  after  his  work  at  Cambridge  was  com- 
pleted, is  a  loss  aUke  to  EngUsh  and  French  letters. 

II 

In  view  of  the  growth  of  the  French  interest  in 
EngUsh  literary  history,  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
serious  efforts  should  be  made  in  France  to  deter- 
mine the  character  and  dimensions  of  the  influence 


202  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

exerted  on  French  literature  by  the  greatest  of  all 
English  men  of  letters — by  Shakespeare.  That  work 
has  been  undertaken  by  M.  Jusserand.  In  1898  he 
gave  to  the  world  the  results  of  his  investigation  in 
his  native  language.  Subsequently,  with  a  welcome 
consideration  for  the  Hnguistic  incapacities  of  Shake- 
speare's countrymen,  he  repeated  his  conclusions  in 
their  tongue.^  The  English  translation  is  embel- 
lished with  many  pictorial  illustrations  of  historic 
interest  and  value. 

Among  French  writers  on  English  literature, 
M.  Jusserand  is  the  most  voluminous  and  the  most 
widely  informed.  His  career  differs  in  an  important 
particular  from  that  of  his  countrymen  who  pursue 
the  same  field  of  study.  He  is  not  by  profession  a 
teacher  or  writer :  he  is  a  diplomatist,  and  now  holds 
the  high  office  of  French  ambassador  to  the  United 
States  of  America.  M.  Jusserand  has  treated  in  his 
books  of  almost  all  periods  of  English  literary  history, 
and  he  has  been  long  engaged  on  an  exhaustive 
Literary  History  of  the  English  People,  of  which  the 
two  volumes  already  published  bring  the  narrative 
as  far  as  the  close  of  the  Civil  Wars. 

M.  Jusserand  enjoys  the  rare,  although  among 
modern  Frenchmen  by  no  means  unexampled, 
faculty  of  writing  with  almost  equal  ease  and  felicity 
in  both  French  and  English.  His  walk  in  life  gives 
him  a  singularly  catholic  outlook.  His  learning  is 
profound,  but  he  is  not  overburdened  by  it,  and  he 
preserves  his  native  gaiety  of  style  even  when  solving 
crabbed  problems  of  bibliography.  He  is  at  times 
discursive,  but  he  is  never  tedious;  and  he  shows 

^  Shakespeare  in  France  under  the  Ancien  Regime,  by  J.  J. 
Jusserand.     London:  T.  Fisher  Unwin.     1899- 


M.  JUSSERAND'S  LITERARY  WORK        203 

no  trace  of  that  philological  pedantry  and  narrow- 
ness or  obliquity  of  critical  vision  which  the  detailed 
study  of  literary  history  has  been  known  to  breed 
in  English  and  German  investigators.  While  M. 
Jusserand  betrays  all  the  critical  independence  of 
his  compatriot,  M.  Taine,  his  habit  of  careful  and 
laborious  research  illustrates  with  peculiar  vivid- 
ness the  progress  which  English  scholarship  has  made 
in  France  since  M.  Taine  completed  his  sparkling 
survey  of  English  literature  in  1864. 

M.  Jusserand  handles  the  theme  of  Shakespeare 
in  France  under  the  Ancien  Regime  with  all  the 
lightness  of  touch  and  wealth  of  minute  detail  to 
which  he  has  accustomed  his  readers.  Nowhere 
have  so  many  facts  been  brought  together  in  order 
to  illustrate  the  literary  intercourse  of  Frenchmen 
and  Englishmen  between  the  sixteenth  and  the  nine- 
teenth centuries.  It  is  true  that  his  opening  chapters 
have  little  concern  with  Shakespeare,  but  their  in- 
trinsic interest  and  novelty  atone  for  their  irrele- 
vance. They  shed  a  flood  of  w^elcome  light  on  that 
interchange  of  literary  information  and  ideas  which 
is  a  constant  feature  in  the  literary  history  of  the 
two  countries. 

Many  will  read  here  for  the  first  time  of  the 
great  poet  Ronsard's  visits  to  this  country;  of  the 
distinguished  company  of  English  actors  which  de- 
lighted the  court  of  Henry  IV.  of  France;  and  of 
Ben  Jonson's  discreditable  drunken  exploits  in  the 
French  capital  when  he  went  thither  as  tutor  to 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  son.  To  these  episodes  might 
well  be  added  the  pleasant  personal  intercourse  of 
Francis  Bacon's  brother,  Anthony,  with  the  great 
French  essayist  Montaigne,  when  the  Englishman 


204  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

was  sojourning  at  Bordeaux  in  1583.  Montaigne's 
Essays  achieved  hardly  less  fame  in  Elizabethan 
England  than  in  France.  Both  Shakespeare  and 
Bacon  gave  proof  of  indebtedness  to  them. 

By  some  freak  of  fortune  Shakespeare's  fame 
was  slow  in  crossing  the  English  Channel.  The 
French  dramatists  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  hved  and  died  in  the  paradoxical  faith 
that  the  British  drama  reached  its  apogee  in  the 
achievement  of  the  Scottish  Latinist,  George  Bu- 
chanan, who  was  reckoned  in  France  ''prince  of 
the  poets  of  our  day."  In  Buchanan's  classical 
tragedies  Montaigne  played  a  part,  while  he  was  a 
student  at  Bordeaux.  His  tragedy  of  Jephtha 
achieved  exceptional  fame  in  sixteenth  century 
France;  three  Frenchmen  of  literary  repute  rendered 
it  independently  into  their  own  language,  and  each 
rendering  went  through  several  editions.  Another 
delusion  which  French  men  of  letters  cherished  not 
only  during  Shakespeare's  hfetime  but  through  three 
or  four  generations  after  his  death,  was  that  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  the  father  of 
Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  were  the  greatest  authors 
which  England  had  begotten  or  was  likely  to  beget. 
French  enthusiasm  for  the  suggestive  irony  of 
More's  Latin  romance  of  Utopia  outran  that  of  his 
fellow-countrymen.  A  French  translation  antici- 
pated the  earhest  rendering  of  the  work  in  the 
author's  native  tongue.  No  less  than  two  inde- 
pendent French  versions  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's 
voluminous  fiction  of  Arcadia  were  circulating  in 
France  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  before  the 
Hke  honour  was  paid  to  any  work  of  Shakespeare. 

Shakespeare's  work  first  arrived  in  France  tow- 


EARLY  CRITICISM  OF  SHAKESPEARE       205 

ard  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  French- 
men were  staggered  by  its  originahty.  They  per- 
ceived the  dramatist's  colossal  breaches  of  classical 
law.  They  were  shocked  by  his  freedom  of  speech. 
When  Louis  the  Fourteenth's  hbrarian  placed  on 
the  shelves  of  the  Royal  Library  in  Paris  a  copy  of 
the  Second  Folio  of  his  works  which  had  been  pub- 
lished in  London  in  1632,  he  noted  in  his  catalogue 
that  Shakespeare  ''has  a  rather  fine  imagination; 
he  thinks  naturally;  but  these  fine  qualities  are 
obscured  by  the  filth  he  introduces  into  his  come- 
dies." An  increasing  mass  of  pedestrian  Uterature 
was  imported  into  France  from  England  through 
the  middle  and  late  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Yet  Shakespeare  had  to  wait  for  a  fair  hearing  there 
till  the  eighteenth  century. 

Then  it  was  very  gradually  that  Shakespeare's 
pre-eminence  was  reaUsed  by  French  critics.  It  is 
to  Voltaire  that  Frenchmen  owe  a  full  knowledge 
of  Shakespeare.  Voltaire's  method  of  teaching 
Shakespeare  to  his  countrymen  was  characteristically 
cj^nical.  He  studied  him  closely  when  he  \dsited 
England  as  a  young  man.  At  that  period  of  his 
career  he  not  merely  praised  him  with  discerning 
caution,  but  he  paid  him  the  flattery  of  imitation. 
Voltaire's  tragedy  of  Brutus  betrays  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccesar.  His 
Eryphile  was  the  product  of  many  perusals  of  Ham- 
let. His  Zaire  is  a  pale  reflection  of  Othello.  But 
when  Voltaire's  countrj^men  showed  a  tendency  to 
better  Voltaire's  instruction,  and  one  Frenchman 
conferred  on  Shakespeare  the  title  of  ''the  god  of 
the  theatre,"  Voltaire  resented  the  situation  that  he 
had  himself  created.     He  was  at  the  height  of  his 


206  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

own  fame,  and  he  felt  that  his  reputation  as  the  first 
of  French  writers  for  the  stage  was  in  jeopardy. 

The  last  years  of  Voltaire's  life  were  therefore 
consecrated  to  an  endeavour  to  dethrone  the  idol 
which  his  own  hands  had  set  up.  Voltaire  traded 
on  the  patriotic  prejudices  of  his  hearers,  but  his 
efforts  to  depreciate  Shakespeare  were  very  partially 
successful.  Few  writers  of  powder  were  ready  to 
second  the  soured  critic,  and  after  Voltaire's  death 
the  Shakespeare  cult  in  France,  of  w^hich  he  was  the 
unwilling  inaugurator,  spread  far  and  wide. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  Shakespeare  was  ad- 
mitted without  demur  into  the  French  '^  pantheon 
of  literary  gods."  Classicists  and  romanticists  vied 
in  doing  him  honour.  The  classical  painter  Ingres 
introduced  his  portrait  into  his  famous  picture  of 
''Homer's  Cortege"  (now  in  the  Louvre).  The 
romanticist  Victor  Hugo  recognised  only  three  men 
as  memorable  in  the  history  of  humanity,  and 
Shakespeare  was  one  of  the  three;  Moses  and  Homer 
were  the  other  two.  Alfred  de  Musset  became  a 
dramatist  under  Shakespeare's  spell.  To  George 
Sand  everything  in  literature  seemed  tame  by  the 
side  of  Shakespeare's  poetry.  The  prince  of  ro- 
mancers, the  elder  Dumas,  set  the  English  drama- 
tist next  to  God  in  the  cosmic  system;  ''After  God," 
wrote  Dumas,  "Shakespeare  has  created  most." 

Ill 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  eulogies  of  Shake- 
speare from  French  lips  in  the  vein  of  Victor  Hugo 
and  Dumas — eulogies  besides  which  the  enthusiasm 
of  many  English  critics  appears  cold  and  constrained. 
So  unfaltering  a  note  of  admiration  sounds  gratefully 


FRENCH  VERSIONS  OF  SHAKESPEARE       207 

in  the  ears  of  Shakespeare's  countrj^men.  Yet  on 
closer  investigation  there  seems  a  rift  wdthin  the  lute. 
When  one  turns  to  the  French  versions  of  Shake- 
speare, for  which  the  chief  of  Shakespeare's  French 
encomiasts  have  made  themselves  responsible,  an 
Englishman  is  inclined  to  moderate  his  exultation 
in  the  French  panegyrics. 

No  one  did  more  as  an  admiring  critic  and 
translator  of  Shakespeare  than  Jean  Fran9ois  Ducis, 
who  prepared  six  of  Shakespeare's  greatest  plays 
for  the  French  stage  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Not  only  did  Ducis  introduce  Shake- 
speare's masterpieces  to  thousands  of  his  country- 
men who  might  otherwise  never  have  heard  of  them, 
but  his  renderings  of  Shakespeare  were  turned  into 
ItaUan  and  many  languages  of  Eastern  Europe. 
They  spread  the  knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  achieve- 
ment to  the  extreme  boundaries  of  the  European 
Continent.  Apparently  Ducis  did  his  work  under 
favourable  auspices.  He  corresponded  regularly 
with  Garrick,  and  he  was  never  happier  than  when 
studying  Shakespeare's  text  with  a  portrait  of 
Shakespeare  at  his  side.  Yet,  in  spite  of  Ducis' 
unquestioned  reverence  and  his  honourable  inten- 
tions, all  his  translations  of  Shakespeare  are  gross 
perversions  of  their  originals.  It  is  not  merely  that 
he  is  verbally  unfaithful.  He  revises  the  develop- 
ment of  the  plots;  he  gives  the  dramatis  personce 
new  names. 

Ducis'  Othello  was  accounted  his  greatest  triumph. 
The  play  shows  Shakespeare's  mastery  of  the  art  of 
tragedy  at  its  highest  stage  of  development,  and 
rewards  the  closest  study.  But  the  French  trans- 
lator  ignored   the   great   tragic    conception   which 


208  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

gives  the  drama  its  pith  and  movement.  He  con- 
verted the  piece  into  a  romance.  Towards  the 
end  of  his  rendering  lago's  villanies  are  discovered 
by  Othello;  Othello  and  Desdemona  are  reconciled; 
and  the  Moor,  exulting  in  his  newly  recovered 
happiness,  pardons  lago.  The  curtain  falls  on  a 
dazzling  scene  of  domestic  bliss. 

Ducis  frankly  acknowledged  that  he  was  guilty 
of  a  somewhat  strained  interpretation  of  Shake- 
speare's tragic  scheme,  but  he  defended  himself  on 
the  ground  that  French  refinement  and  French  sen- 
sitiveness could  not  endure  the  agonising  violence 
of  the  true  catastrophe.  It  is,  indeed,  the  fact  that 
the  patrons  of  the  Comedie  Fran^aise  strictly 
warned  the  adapter  against  revolting  their  feelings 
by  reproducing  the  ^'barbarities"  that  character- 
ised the  close  of  Shakespeare's  tragic  masterpiece. 

If  so  fastidious  a  flinching  from  tragic  episode 
breathe  the  true  French  sentiment,  what,  we  are 
moved  to  ask,  is  the  significance  of  the  unqualified 
regard  which  Ducis  and  his  countrymen  profess  for 
Shakespearean  drama?  There  seems  a  strange  par- 
adox in  the  situation.  The  history  of  France  proves 
that  Frenchmen  can  face  without  quailing  the  direst 
tragedies  which  can  be  wrought  in  earnest  off  the 
stage.  There  is  a  startling  inconsistency  in  the 
outcry  of  Ducis'  French  clients  against  the  terror 
of  Desdemona's  murder.  For  the  protests  which 
Ducis  reports  on  the  part  of  the  Parisians  bear  the 
date  1792.  In  that  year  the  tragedy  of  the  French 
Revolution — a  tragedy  of  real  life,  grimmer  than 
any  that  Shakespeare  imagined — was  being  enacted 
in  literal  truth  by  the  Parisian  playgoers  them- 
selves.    It  would  seem  that  Ducis  and  his  country- 


DUMAS'S  VERSION  OF  HAMLET  209 

men  deemed  the  purpose  of  art  to  be  alone  fulfilled 
when  the  artistic  fabric  was  divorced  from  the  ugly 
facts  of  life. 

A  like  problem  is  presented  by  Dumas'  efforts 
in  more  pacific  conditions  to  adapt  Shakespeare  for 
the  Parisian  stage.  With  his  friend  Paul  Meurice 
Dumas  prepared  the  version  of  Hamlet  which  long 
enjoyed  a  standard  repute  at  the  Comedie  Fran^aise. 
Dumas'  ecstatic  adoration  for  Shakespeare's  genius 
did  not  deter  him,  any  more  than  Ducis  was  deterred 
by  his  more  subdued  veneration,  from  working  havoc 
on  the  English  text.  Shakespeare's  blank  verse 
was  necessarily  turned  into  Alexandrines.  That  was 
comparatively  immaterial.  Of  greater  moment  is 
it  to  note  that  the  denouement  of  the  tragedy  was 
completely  revolutionised  by  Dumas.  The  tragic 
climax  is  undermined.  Hamlet's  life  is  spared  by 
Dumas.  The  hero's  dying  exclamation,  ''The  rest 
is  silence,"  disappears  from  Dumas'  version.  At 
the  close  of  the  play  the  French  translator  makes 
the  ghost  rejoin  his  son  and  good-naturedly  promise 
him  indefinite  prolongation  of  his  earthly  career. 
According  to  the  gospel  of  Dumas,  the  tragedy  of 
Hamlet  ends,  as  soon  as  his  and  his  father's  wrongs 
have  been  avenged,  in  this  fashion: — 

Hamlet.     Et  moi,  vais-je  rester,  triste  orphelin  sur  terre, 
A  respirer  cet  air  impregne  de  niisere?  .   .  . 
Est-ce  que  Dieu  sur  moi  fera  peser  son  bras, 
Pere.'^     Et  quel  chatiment  m'attend  done? 

Le  Fantome.  Tu  vivras. 

Such  defiant  transgressions  of  the  true  Shake- 
spearean canon  as  those  of  which  Ducis  and  Dumas 
stand  convicted  may  well  rouse  the  suspicion  that 


210  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

the  critical  incense  they  burn  at  Shakespeare's  shrine 
is  offered  with  the  tongue  in  the  cheek.  But  that 
suspicion  is  not  justified.  Ducis  and  Dumas  worship 
Shakespeare  with  a  whole  heart.  Their  misappre- 
hensions of  his  tragic  conceptions  are  due,  involun- 
tarily, to  native  temperament.  In  point  of  fact, 
Ducis  and  Dumas  see  Shakespeare  through  a  dis- 
torting medium.  The  two  Frenchmen  were  fully 
conscious  of  Shakespeare's  towering  greatness.  They 
perceived  intuitively  that  Shakespeare's  tragedies 
transcended  all  other  dramatic  achievement.  But 
their  aesthetic  sense,  which,  as  far  as  the  drama  was 
concerned,  was  steeped  in  the  classical  spirit,  set 
many  of  the  essential  features  of  Shakespeare's  gen- 
ius outside  the  focus  of  their  vision. 

To  a  Frenchman  a  tragedy  of  classical  rank 
connotes  ^'correctness,"  an  absence  of  tumult,  some 
observance  of  the  classical  law  of  unity  of  time, 
place,  and  action.  The  perpetration  of  crime  in 
face  of  the  audience  outraged  all  classical  conven- 
tions. Ducis  and  Dumas  recognised  involuntarily 
that  certain  characteristics  of  the  Shakespearean 
drama  could  not  live  in  the  classical  atmosphere 
of  their  own  theatre.  Excision,  expansion,  reduc- 
tion was  inevitable  before  Shakespeare  could  breathe 
the  air  of  the  French  stage.  The  grotesque  per- 
versions of  Ducis  and  Dumas  were  thus  not  the 
fruit  of  mere  waywardness,  or  carelessness,  or  dis- 
honesty; they  admit  of  philosophical  explanation. 

By  Englishmen  they  may  be  viewed  with  equa- 
nimity, if  not  with  satisfaction.  They  offer  strong 
proof  of  the  irrepressible  strength  or  catholicity  of 
the  appeal  that  Shakespeare's  genius  makes  to  the 
mind  and  heart  of  humanity.     His  spirit  survived 


NODIER'S  TRIBUTE  211 

the  French  efforts  at  mutilation.  The  Galhcised  or 
classicised  contortions  of  his  mighty  work  did  not 
destroy  its  saving  virtue.  There  is  ground  for  con- 
gratulation that  Ducis'  and  Dumas'  perversions  of 
Shakespeare  excited  among  Frenchmen  almost  as 
devoted  an  homage  as  the  dramatist's  work  in  its 
native  purity  and  perfection  claims  of  men  whose 
souls  are  free  of  the  fetters  of  classical  tradition. 


IV 

If  any  still  doubt  the  sincerity  of  the  worship 
which  is  offered  Shakespeare  in  France,  I  would 
direct  the  sceptic's  attention  to  a  pathetically  simple 
tribute  which  was  paid  to  the  dramatist  by  a  French 
student  in  the  first  year  of  the  last  century,  when 
England  and  France  were  in  the  grip  of  the  Napo- 
leonic War.  It  was  then  that  a  young  Frenchman 
proved  beyond  cavil  by  an  ingenuous  confession  that 
the  English  poet,  in  spite  of  the  racial  differences  of 
2esthetic  sentiment,  could  touch  a  French  heart  more 
deeply  than  any  French  or  classical  author.  In 
1801  there  was  pubHshed  at  Besan9on,  ''de  I'im- 
primerie  de  Metoyer,"  a  very  thin  volume  in  small 
octavo,  under  fifty  pages  in  length,  entitled,  Pensees 
de  Shakespeare,  Extraites  de  ses  Ouvrages.  No  com- 
piler's name  is  mentioned,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  book  was  from  the  pen  of  a  precocious  native 
of  Besan^on,  Charles  Nodier,  who  was  in  later  life 
to  gain  distinction  as  a  bibliographer  and  writer  of 
romance. 

This  forgotten  volume,  of  which  no  more  than 
twenty-five  copies  were  printed,  and  only  two  or 


212  SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 

three  of  these  seem  to  survive,  has  escaped  the 
notice  of  M.  Jusserand.  No  copy  of  it  is  in  the 
British  Museum,  or  in  La  BibHotheque  de  TArsenal, 
with  which  the  author,  Nodier,  was  long  honourably 
associated  as  hbrarian.  I  purchased  it  a  few  years 
ago  by  accident  in  a  small  collection  of  imperfectly 
catalogued  Shakespeareana.  Lurking  in  the  rear 
of  a  very  ragged  regiment  on  the  shelves  of  the 
auctioneer  stood  Charles  Nodier's  Pensees  de  Shake- 
speare. None  competed  with  me  for  the  prize.  A 
very  slight  effort  deUvered  into  my  hands  the  little 
chaplet  of  French  laurel. 

The  major  part  of  the  volume  consists  of  190 
numbered  sentences — each  a  French  rendering  of 
an  apophthegm  or  reflection  drawn  from  Shake- 
speare's plays.  The  translator  is  not  faithful  to 
his  EngHsh  text,  but  his  style  is  clear  and  often 
rises  to  eloquence.  The  book  does  not,  however, 
owe  its  interest  to  Nodier's  version  of  Shakespearean 
maxims.  Nor  can  one  grow  enthusiastic  over  the 
dedication.  ^'A  elle" — an  unidentified  fair-one  to 
whom  the  youthful  writer  proffers  his  homage  with 
respectful  propriety.  The  salt  of  the  Httle  volume 
hes  in  the  ''Observations  Prehminaries,"  which 
cover  less  than  five  widely-printed  pages.  These 
observations  breathe  a  genuine  affection  for  Shake- 
speare's personahty  and  a  sense  of  gratitude  for  his 
achievement  in  terms  which  no  Enghsh  admirer 
has  excelled  for  tenderness  and  simpUcity. 

''Shakespeare,"  writes  this  French  worshipper, 
"is  a  friend  whom  Heaven  has  given  to  the  un- 
happy of  every  age  and  every  country."  The  writer 
warns  us  that  he  offers  no  eulogy  of  Shakespeare; 
that  is  to  be  found  in  the  poet's  works,  which  the 


NODIER'S  PERSONAL  DEVOTION  213 

Frenchman  for  his  own  part  prefers  to  read  and 
read  again  rather  than  waste  time  in  praising  them. 
'^The  features  of  Alexander  ought  only  to  be  pre- 
served by  Apelles."  Nodier  merely  collects  some 
of  Shakespeare's  thoughts  on  great  moral  truths 
which  he  thinks  to  be  useful  to  the  conduct  of  life. 
But  such  extracts,  he  admonishes  his  reader,  supply 
no  true  knowledge  of  Shakespeare.  "  From  Shake- 
speare's works  one  can  draw  forth  a  philosophy,  but 
from  no  systems  of  philosophy  could  one  construct 
one  page  of  Shakespeare."  Nodier  concludes  his 
'^ Observations"  thus: — 

'^I  advise  those  who  do  not  know  Shakespeare  to 
study  him  in  himself.  I  advise  those  who  know  him 
already  to  read  him  again.  ...  I  know  him,  but 
I  must  needs  declare  my  admiration  for  him.  I  have 
reviewed  my  powers,  and  am  content  to  cast  a 
flower  on  his  grave  since  I  am  not  able  to  raise  a 
monument  to  his  memory." 

Language  hke  this  admits  no  questioning  of 
its  sincerity.  Nodier's  modest  tribute  handsomely 
atones  for  his  countrymen's  misapprehensions  of 
Shakespeare's  tragic  conceptions.  None  has  phrased 
more  delicately  or  more  simply  the  sense  of  personal 
devotion,  which  is  roused  by  close  study  of  his 
work. 


XI 


THE  COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKE- 
SPEARE IN  LONDON! 


The  public  memory  is  short.  At  the  instant  the 
suggestion  that  Shakespeare  should  receive  the 
tribute  of  a  great  national  monument  in  London  is 
attracting  general  attention.  In  the  ears  of  the  vast 
majority  of  those  who  are  taking  part  in  the  discus- 
sion the  proposal  appears  to  strike  a  new  note.  Few 
seem  aware  that  a  national  memorial  of  Shakespeare 
has  been  urged  on  Londoners  many  times  before. 
Thrice,  at  least,  during  the  past  eighty-five  years  has 
it  exercised  the  pubHc  mind. 

At  the  extreme  end  of  the  year  1820,  the  well- 
known  actor,  Charles  Mathews,  set  on  foot  a  move- 
ment for  the  erection  of  "a>  national  monument 
to  the  immortal  memory  of  Shakespeare."  He 
pledged  himself  to  enUst  the  support  of  the  new 
King,  George  the  Fourth,  of  members  of  the  royal 
family,  of  ''every  man  of  rank  and  talent,  every  poet, 
artist,  and  sculptor."     Mathews'  endeavour  achieved 

^  This  paper  was  first  printed  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  and 
After,  April,  1905. 
214 


SCHEMES  FOR  A  NATIONAL  MONUMENT      215 

only  a  specious  success.  George  the  Fourth  readily 
gave  his  ''high  sanction"  to  a  London  memorial. 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  Tom 
IMoore,  and  Washington  Irving  were  among  the  men 
of  letters;  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  [Sir]  Francis  Chan- 
trey,  and  John  Nash,  the  architect,  were  among  the 
artists,  who  approved  the  general  conception.  For 
three  or  four  years  ink  was  spilt  and  breath  was 
spent  in  the  advocacy  of  the  scheme.  But  nothing 
came  of  all  the  letters  and  speeches. 

In  1847  the  topic  was  again  broached.  A  com- 
mittee, which  was  hardly  less  influential  than  that 
of  1821,  revived  the  proposal.  Again  no  result 
followed. 

Seventeen  years  passed  away,  and  then,  in  1864, 
the  arrival  of  the  tercentenary  of  Shakespeare's 
birth  seemed  to  many  men  of  eminence  in  pubhc  life, 
in  letters  or  in  art,  an  appropriate  moment  at  which 
to  carry  the  design  into  effect.  A  third  failure  has 
to  be  recorded. 

The  notion,  indeed,  was  no  child  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  which  fathered  it  so  ineffectually. 
It  was  famihar  to  the  eighteenth.  One  eighteenth- 
century  effort  was  fortunate  enough  to  yield  a  little 
permanent  fruit.  To  an  eighteenth-century  en- 
deavour to  offer  Shakespeare  a  national  memorial  in 
London  was  due  the  cenotaph  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

II 

The  suggestion  of  commemorating  Shakespeare 
by  means  of  a  monument  in  London  has  thus  some- 
thing more  than  a  ''smack  of  age"  about  it,  some- 
thing more  than  a  "relish  of  the  saltness  of  time"; 


216        COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEAKE 

there  are  points  of  view  from  which  it  might  appear 
to  be  akeady  "blasted  with  antiquity."  On  only 
one  of  the  previous  occasions  that  the  question  was 
raised  was  the  stage  of  discussion  passed,  and  that 
was  in  the  eighteenth  century  when  the  monument 
was  placed  in  the  Poets'  Corner  of  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  issue  was  not  fehcitous.  The  memorial 
in  the  Abbey  failed  to  satisfy  the  commemorative 
aspirations  of  the  nation;  it  left  it  open  to  succeed- 
ing generations  to  reconsider  the  question,  if  it  did 
not  impose  on  them  the  obligation.  Most  of  the 
poets,  actors,  scholars,  and  patrons  of  polite  learn- 
ing, who  in  1741  subscribed  their  guineas  to  the 
fund  for  placing  a  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
resented  the  sculpturesque  caricature  to  which  their 
subscriptions  were  applied.  Pope,  an  original  leader 
of  the  movement,  declined  to  write  an  inscription  for 
this  national  memorial,  but  scribbled  some  ironical 
verses  beginning: — 

Thus  Britons  love  me  and  preserve  my  fame. 

A  later  critic  imagined  Shakespeare's  wraith  pausing 
in  horror  by  the  famihar  monument  in  the  Abbey, 
and  lightly  misquoting  Shelley's  famihar  lines: — 

I  silently  laugh  at  my  own  cenotaph,  .  .  . 
And  long  to  imbuild  it  again. 

One  of  the  most  regrettable  effects  of  the  Abbey 
memorial,  with  its  mawkish  and  irrelevant  sentimen- 
tality, has  been  to  set  a  bad  pattern  for  statues  of 
Shakespeare.  Posterity  came  to  invest  the  design 
with  some  measure  of  sanctity. 

The  nineteenth-century  efforts  were  mere  abor- 
tions. In  1821,  in  spite  of  George  the  Fourth's 
benevolent  patronage,  which  included  an  unfulfilled 


CAUSES  OF  PAST  FAILURE  217 

promise  to  pay  the  sum  of  100  guineas,  the  total 
amount  which  was  collected  after  six  years'  agitation 
was  so  small  that  it  was  returned  to  the  subscribers. 
The  accounts  are  extant  in  the  Library  of  Shake- 
speare's Birthplace  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  In  1847 
the  subscriptions  wTre  more  abundant,  but  all  was 
then  absorbed  in  the  purchase  of  Shakespeare's 
Birthplace  at  Stratford;  no  money  was  available  for 
a  London  memorial.  In  1864  the  expenses  of  organ- 
ising the  tercentenary  celebration  in  London  by  way 
of  banquets,  concerts,  and  theatrical  performances, 
seem  to  have  left  no  surplus  for  the  purpose  which 
the  movement  set  out  to  fulfil. 

Ill 

The  causes  of  the  sweeping  failure  of  the  proposal 
when  it  came  before  the  pubhc  during  the  nineteenth 
century  are  worthy  of  study.  There  was  no  lack  of 
enthusiasm  among  the  promoters.  Nor  were  their 
high  hopes  wrecked  solely  by  public  apathy.  The 
public  interest  was  never  altogether  dormant.  More 
efficient  causes  of  ruin  were,  firstly,  the  active  hos- 
tility of  some  prominent  writers  and  actors  who  de- 
claimed against  all  outward  and  visible  commemora- 
tion of  Shakespeare;  and  secondly,  divisions  in  the 
ranks  of  supporters  in  regard  to  the  precise  form  that 
the  memorial  ought  to  take.  The  censorious  refusal 
of  one  section  of  the  literary  pubfic  to  countenance 
any  memorial  at  all,  and  the  inability  of  another  sec- 
tion, while  promoting  the  endeavour,  to  concentrate 
its  energies  on  a  single  acceptable  form  of  commemor- 
ation had,  as  might  be  expected,  a  paralysing  effect. 

"England,"  it  was  somewhat  casuistically  argued 


218       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

in  1864,  ''has  never  been  ungrateful  to  her  poet;  but 
the  very  depth  and  fervour  of  the  reverence  in  which 
he  is  held  have  hitherto  made  it  difficult  for  his 
scholars  to  agree  upon  any  common  proceeding  in  his 
name.'*  Neither  in  1864  nor  at  earlier  and  later 
epochs  have  Shakespearean  scholars  always  formed 
among  themselves  a  very  happy  family.  That  ami- 
able sentiment  which  would  treat  the  reaUsation 
of  the  commemorative  aim  as  a  patriotic  obligation 
— as  an  obHgation  which  no  good  citizen  could  hon- 
ourably repudiate — has  often  produced  discord  rather 
than  harmony  among  the  Shakespearean  scholars 
who  cherish  it.  One  school  of  these  has  argued  in 
the  past  for  a  work  of  sculpture,  and  has  been  op- 
posed by  a  cry  for  a  college  for  actors,  or  a  Shake- 
spearean theatre.  ''We  do  not  like  the  idea  of  a 
monument  at  all,"  wrote  The  Times  on  the  20th  of 
January  1864.  "Shakespeare,"  wrote  Punch  on  the 
6th  of  February  following,  "needs  no  statue."  In 
old  days  it  was  frequently  insisted  that,  even  if  the 
erection  of  a  London  monument  were  desirable, 
active  effort  ought  to  be  postponed  until  an  adequate 
memorial  had  been  placed  in  Stratford-on-Avon 
where  the  poet's  memory  had  been  hitherto  inade- 
quately honoured.  At  the  same  time  a  band  of 
students  was  always  prepared  to  urge  the  chilling 
plea  that  the  payment  of  any  outward  honour  to 
Shakespeare  was  laboursome  futility,  was  "wasteful 
and  ridiculous  excess."  Milton's  query:  "What 
needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones?"  has 
always  been  quoted  to  satiety  by  a  vociferous  section 
of  the  critics  whenever  the  commemoration  of  Shake- 
speare has  come  under  discussion. 


THE  NEW  PROPOSALS  219 

IV 

Once  again  the  question  of  a  national  memorial  of 
Shakespeare  in  London  has  been  revived  in  condi- 
tions not  wholly  unHke  those  that  have  gone  before. 
Mr  Richard  Badger,  a  veteran  enthusiast  for  Shake- 
speare, who  was  educated  in  the  poet's  native  place, 
has  offered  the  people  of  London  the  sum  of  £3500  as 
the  nucleus  of  a  great  Shakespeare  Memorial  Fund. 
The  Lord  Mayor  of  London  has  presided  over  a  pub- 
lic meeting  at  the  Mansion  House,  which  has  em- 
powered an  influential  committee  to  proceed  with 
the  work.  The  London  County  Council  has  promised 
to  provide  a  site.  With  regard  to  the  form  that  the 
memorial  ought  to  take,  a  variety  of  irresponsible 
suggestions  has  been  made.  It  has  now  been  au- 
thoritatively determined  to  erect  a  sculptured  monu- 
ment on  the  banks  of  the  Thames.^ 

The  propriety  of  visibly  and  outwardly  com- 
memorating Shakespeare  in  the  capital  city  of  the 
Empire  has  consequently  become  once  more  an 
urgent  pubUc  question.  The  public  is  invited  anew 
to  form  an  opinion  on  the  various  points  at  issue.  No 
expression  of  opinion  should  carry  weight  which 
omits  to  take  into  account  past  experience  as  well  as 
present  conditions  and  possibilities.     If  regard  for 

^  The  proceedings  of  the  committee  which  was  formed  in  the 
spring  of  1905  have  been  dilatory.  Mr  Badger  informs  me  that 
he  paid  the  organisers,  nearly  two  years  ago,  the  sum  of  .£500 
for  preliminary  expenses,  and  deposited  bonds  to  the  value  of 
£3,000  with  Lord  Avebury,  the  treasurer  of  the  committee.  The 
delay  is  assigned  to  the  circumstance  that  the  London  County 
Council,  which  is  supporting  the  proposal,  is  desirous  of  associ- 
ating it  with  the  great  Council  Hall  which  it  is  preparing  to  erect 
on  the  south  side  of  the  Thames,  and  that  it  has  not  yet  been 
found  practicable  to  invite  designs  for  that  work  (Oct.  1,  1906). 


220       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  public  interest  justify  a  national  memorial  in 
London,  it  is  most  desirable  to  define  the  principles 
whereby  its  precise  form  should  be  determined. 

In  one  important  particular  the  consideration  of 
the  subject  to-day  is  simpler  than  when  it  was 
debated  on  former  occasions.  Differences  existed, 
then  as  now,  in  regard  to  the  propriety  of  erecting  a 
national  memorial  of  Shakespeare  in  London;  but 
almost  all  who  interested  themselves  in  the  matter 
in  the  nineteenth  century  agreed  that  the  public 
interest  justified,  if  it  did  not  require,  the  preserva- 
tion from  decay  or  demoHtion  of  the  buildings  at 
Stratford-on-Avon  with  which  Shakespeare's  life 
was  associated.  So  long  as  those  buildings  were 
in  private  hands,  every  proposal  to  commemorate 
Shakespeare  in  London  had  to  meet  a  formidable 
objection  which  was  raised  on  their  behalf.  If  the 
nation  undertook  to  commemorate  Shakespeare  at 
all,  it  should  make  its  first  aim  (it  was  argued)  the 
conversion  into  public  property  of  the  surviving 
memorials  of  Shakespeare's  career  at  Stratford. 
The  scheme  of  the  London  memorial  could  not  be 
thoroughl}^  discussed  on  its  merits  while  the  claims 
of  Stratford  remained  unsatisfied.  It  was  deemed 
premature,  whether  or  no  it  were  justifiable,  to  en- 
tertain any  scheme  of  commemoration  which  left 
the  Stratford  buildings  out  of  account. 

A  natural  sentiment  connected  Shakespeare  more 
closely  with  Stratford-on-Avon  than  with  any  other 
place.  Whatever  part  London  played  in  his  career, 
the  pubHc  mind  was  dominated  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  born  at  Stratford,  died,  and  was  buried  there.  If 
he  left  Stratford  in  youth  in  order  to  work  out  his 
destiny  in  London,  he  returned  to  it  in  middle  life 


COMMEMORATION  AT  STRATFORD-ON-AVON    221 

in  order  to  end  his  days  there  '^in  ease,  retirement, 
and  the  conversation  of  his  friends." 

In  spite  of  this  widespread  feehng,  it  proved  no 
easy  task,  nor  one  capable  of  rapid  fulfilment,  to 
consecrate  in  permanence  to  public  uses  the  extant 
memorials  of  Shakespeare  at  Stratford-on-Avon. 
Stratford  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  admirers  of 
Shakespeare  from  early  days  in  the  seventeenth 
century — soon,  in  fact,  after  Shakspeare's  death  in 
1616.  But  local  veneration  did  not  prevent  the 
demolition  in  1759,  by  a  private  owner,  of  New  Place, 
Shakespeare's  last  residence.  That  act  of  vandal- 
ism was  long  in  provoking  any  effective  resentment. 
Garrick,  by  means  of  his  Jubilee  Festival  of  1769, 
effectively,  if  somewhat  theatrically,  called  the  at- 
tention of  the  English  public  to  the  claims  of  the 
town  to  the  affectionate  regard  of  lovers  of  the  great 
dramatist.  Nevertheless,  it  was  left  to  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  dedicate  in  perpetuity  to  the  pub- 
lic service  the  places  which  were  the  scenes  of 
Shakespeare's  private  life  in  his  native  town. 

Charles  Mathews'  effort  of  1821  took  its  rise  in 
an  endeavour  to  purchase  in  behalf  of  the  nation  the 
vacant  site  of  Shakespeare's  demolished  residence 
of  New  Place,  with  the  great  garden  attached  to  it. 
But  that  scheme  was  overweighted  by  the  incorpora- 
tion with  it  of  the  plan  for  a  London  monument,  and 
both  collapsed  ignominiously.  In  1835  a  strong 
committee  was  formed  at  Stratford  to  commemorate 
the  poet's  connection  with  the  town.  It  was  called 
'Hhe  Monumental  Committee,"  and  had  for  its  ob- 
ject, firstly,  the  repair  of  Shakespeare's  tomb  in  the 
Parish  Church;  and  secondly,  the  preservation  and 
restoration  of  all  the  Shakespearean  buildings  in  the 


222        COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

town.  Subscriptions  were  limited  to  £1,  and  all  the 
members  of  the  royal  family,  including  the  Princess 
Victoria,  who  two  years  later  came  to  the  throne, 
figured,  with  other  leading  personages  in  the  nation's 
life,  in  the  hst  of  subscribers.  But  the  subscrip- 
tions only  produced  a  sum  sufficient  to  carry  out 
the  first  purpose  of  the  Monumental  Committee — 
the  repair  of  the  tomb. 

In  1847  the  sale  by  public  auction  was  announced 
of  the  house  in  which  Shakespeare  was  born.  It  had 
long  been  a  show-place  in  private  hands.  A  general 
feeling  declared  itself  in  favour  of  the  purchase  of 
the  house  for  the  nation.  Public  sentiment  was  in 
accord  with  the  ungrammatical  grandiloquence  of 
the  auctioneer,  the  famous  Robins,  whose  advertise- 
ment of  the  sale  included  the  sentence:  ''It  is  trusted 
the  feeling  of  the  country  wiU  be  so  evinced  that  the 
structure  may  be  secured,  hallowed  and  cherished 
as  a  national  monument  almost  as  imperishable  as 
the  poet's  fame."  A  subscription  list  was  headed 
by  Prince  Albert  with  £250.  A  distinguished  com- 
mittee was  formed  under  the  presidency  of  Lord 
Morpeth  (afterwards  the  seventh  Earl  of  Carhsle), 
then  Chief  Commissioner  of  Woods  and  Forests,  who 
offered  to  make  his  department  perpetual  conserva- 
tors of  the  property.  (That  proposal  was  not  ac- 
cepted.) Dickens,  Macaulay,  Lord  Lytton,  and  the 
historian  Grote  were  all  active  in  promoting  the 
movement,  and  it  proved  successful.  The  property 
was  duly  secured  by  a  private  trust  in  behalf  of  the 
nation.  The  most  important  house  identified  with 
Shakespeare's  career  in  Stratford  was  thus  effectively 
protected  from  the  risks  that  are  always  inherent 
in  private  ownership.     The  step  was  not  taken  with 


THE  PURCHASE  OF  NEW  PLACE  223 

undue  haste;  two  hundred  and  thirty-one  years  had 
elapsed  since  Shakespeare's  death. 

Fourteen  years  later,  in  \ers^  similar  circum- 
stances, the  still  vacant  site  of  Shakespeare's  de- 
molished residence.  New  Place,  with  the  great  garden 
behind  it,  and  the  adjoining  house,  w^ere  acquired  by 
the  pubHc.  A  new  Shakespeare  Fund,  to  which  the 
Prince  Consort  subscribed  £100,  and  Miss  Burdett- 
Coutts  (afterwards  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts)  £600, 
w^as  formed  not  only  to  satisfy  this  purpose,  but  to 
provide  the  means  of  equipping  a  librarv^  and  museum 
which  were  contemplated  at  the  Birthplace,  as  well 
as  a  second  museum  which  was  to  be  provided  on  the 
New  Place  property.  It  was  appropriate  to  make 
these  buildings  depositories  of  authentic  rehcs  and 
books  which  should  illustrate  the  poet's  life  and  work. 
This  national  Shakespeare  Fund  was  actively  pro- 
moted, chiefly  by  the  late  Mr  Halliwell-Phillipps,  for 
more  than  ten  years;  a  large  sum  of  money  was  col- 
lected, and  the  aims  ^\dth  which  the  Fund  was  set 
on  foot  were  to  a  large  extent  fulfilled.  It  only 
remained  to  organise  on  a  permanent  legal  basis  the 
completed  Stratford  Memorial  of  Shakespeare.  By 
an  Act  of  Parliament  passed  in  1891  the  two  prop- 
erties of  New  Place  and  the  Birthplace  were  definite- 
ly formed  into  a  single  public  trust  ''for  and  in  behalf 
of  the  nation."  The  trustees  were  able  in  1892,  out 
of  their  surplus  income,  which  is  derived  from  the 
fees  of  \dsitors,  to  add  to  their  estates  Anne  Hath- 
away's  Cottage  at  Shottery,  a  third  building  of  high 
interest  to  students  of  Shakespeare's  history. 

The  formation  of  the  Birthplace  Trust  has  every 
title  to  be  regarded  as  an  outward  and  \dsible  tribute 
to  Shakespeare's  memory  on  the  part  of  the  British 


224       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

nation  at  large. ^  The  purchase  for  the  pubhc  of  the 
Birthplace,  the  New  Place  property,  and  Anne 
Hathaway 's  Cottage  was  not  primarily  due  to  local 
effort.  Justty  enough,  a  ver}^  small  portion  of  the 
necessary  funds  came  from  Stratford  itself.  The 
British  nation  may  therefore  take  credit  for  having 
set  up  at  least  one  fitting  monument  to  Shakespeare 
by  consecrating  to  public  uses  the  property  identified 
with  his  career  in  Stratford.  Larger  funds  than 
the  trustees  at  present  possess  are  required  to  enable 
them  to  carry  on  the  work  which  their  predecessors 
began,  and  to  compete  with  any  chance  of  success 
for  books  and  relics  of  Shakespearean  interest — 
such  as  they  are  empowered  by  Act  of  ParUament 
to  acquire — when  these  memorials  chance  to  come 
into  the  market.  But  a  number  of  small  annual 
subscriptions  from  men  of  letters  has  lately  facilitated 
the  performance  of  this  part  of  the  trustees'  work, 
and  that  source  of  income  may,  it  is  hoped,  increase. 
At  any  rate,  the  ancient  objection  to  the  erection 

^  Nor  is  this  all  that  has  been  accomplished  at  Stratford  in  the 
nineteenth  century  in  the  way  of  the  national  commemoration  of 
Shakespeare.  While  the  surviving  property  of  Shakespearean 
interest  was  in  course  of  acquisition  for  the  nation^  an  early  am- 
bition to  erect  in  Stratford  a  theatre  in  Shakespeare's  memory 
was  realised — in  part  by  subscriptions  from  the  general  public, 
but  mainly  by  the  munificence  of  members  of  the  Flower  family, 
three  generations  of  which  have  resided  at  Stratford.  The 
Memorial  Theatre  was  opened  in  1879;,  and  the  Picture  Gallery 
and  Library  which  were  attached  to  it  were  completed  two  years 
later.  The  Memorial  Buildings  at  Stratford  stand  on  a  different 
footing  from  the  proj^erties  of  the  Birthplace  Trust.  The  Memo- 
rial institution  has  an  independent  government,  and  is  to  a  larger 
extent  under  local  control.  But  the  extended  series  of  perform- 
ances of  Shakespearean  drama,  which  takes  place  each  year  in 
April  at  the  Memorial  Theatre,  has  something  of  the  character 
of  an  annual  commemoration  of  Shakespeare  by  the  nation  at 
large. 


THE  NATIONAL  MEMORIAL  AT  STRATFORD    225 

of  a  national  monument  in  London,  which  was  based 
on  the  absence  of  any  memorial  in  Stratford,  is  no 
longer  of  avail.  In  1821,  in  1847,  and  in  1864,  when 
the  acquisition  of  the  Stratford  property  was  un- 
attempted  or  uncompleted,  it  was  perfectly  just  to 
argue  that  Stratford  was  entitled  to  have  precedence 
of  London  when  the  question  of  commemorating 
Shakespeare  was  debated.  It  is  no  just  argument 
in  1906,  now  that  the  claims  of  Stratford  are  prac- 
tically satisfied. 

Byron,  when  writing  of  the  memorial  to  Petrarch 
at  Arqua,  expressed  with  admirable  feeUng  the  senti- 
ment that  would  confine  outward  memorials  of  a 
poet  in  his  native  town  to  the  places  where  he  was 
born,  Uved,  died,  and  was  buried.  With  very  Uttle 
verbal  change  Byron's  stanza  on  the  visible  memor- 
ials of  Petrarch's  association  with  Arqua  is  appHcable 
to  those  of  Shakespeare's  connexion  with  Stratford : — 

They  keep  his  dust  in  Stratford,  where  he  died; 

The  midland  village  where  his  later  days 

Went  down  the  vale  of  years ;  and  'tis  their  pride — 

An  honest  pride — and  let  it  be  their  praise. 

To  offer  to  the  passing  stranger's  gaze 

His  birthplace  and  his  sepulchre;  both  plain 

And  venerably  simple,  such  as  raise 

A  feeling  more  accordant  with  his  strain 

Than  if  a  pyramid  form'd  his  monumental  fane.^ 

Venerable  simplicity  is  hardly  the  characteristic 
note  of  Shakespeare's  '^ strain"  any  more  than  it  is 
of  Petrarch's  ''strain."  But  there  can  be  no  just 
quarrel  with  the  general  contention  that  at  Strat- 
ford, where  Shakespeare  gave  ample  proof  of  his 
characteristic  modesty,  a  pyramidal  fane  would  be 
out  of  harmony  with  the  environment.     There  his 

^  Cf.  Childe  Harold,  Canto  IV.,  St.  xxxi. 


226         COMAIEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

birthplace,   his  garden,   and   tomb  are  the  fittest 
memorials  of  his  great  career. 


It  may  justly  be  asked:  Is  there  any  principle 
which  justifies  another  sort  of  memorial  elsewhere? 
On  grounds  of  history  and  sentiment,  but  in  con- 
ditions which  demand  most  careful  definition,  the 
right  answer  will,  I  think,  be  in  the  affirmative.  For 
one  thing,  Shakespeare's  life  was  not  confined  to 
Stratford.  His  professional  career  was  spent  in 
London,  and  those,  who  strictly  insist  that  memorials 
to  great  men  should  be  erected  only  in  places  with 
which  they  were  personally  associated,  can  hardly 
deny  that  London  shares  with  Stratford  a  title  to 
a  memorial  from  a  biographical  or  historical  point 
of  view.  Of  Shakespeare's  life  of  fifty-two  years, 
twenty-four  years  were  in  all  probabifity  spent  in 
London.  During  those  years  the  work  that  makes 
him  memorable  was  done.  It  was  in  London  that 
the  fame  which  is  universally  acknowledged  was 
won. 

Some  valuable  details  regarding  Shakespeare's 
life  in  London  are  accessible.  The  districts  where  he 
resided  and  where  he  passed  his  days  are  known. 
There  is  evidence  that  during  the  early  part  of  his 
London  career  he  lived  in  the  parish  of  St  Helen's, 
Bishopsgate,  and  during  the  later  part  near  the  Bank- 
side,  South wark.  With  the  south  side  of  the  Thames 
he  was  long  connected,  together  with  his  youngest 
brother,  Edmund,  who  was  also  an  actor,  and  who 
was  buried  in  the  church  of  St  Saviour's,  Southwark. 

In  his  early  London  days  Shakespeare's  profes- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE  IN  LONDON  227 

sional  work,  alike  as  actor  and  dramatist,  brought 
him  daily  from  St  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  to  The 
Theatre  in  Shoreditch.  Shoreditch  was  then  the 
chief  theatrical  quarter  in  London.  Later,  the  cen- 
tre of  London  theatrical  Hfe  shifted  to  Southwark, 
where  the  far-famed  Globe  Theatre  was  erected, 
in  1599,  mainly  out  of  the  materials  of  the  dis- 
mantled Shoreditch  Theatre.  Ultimately  Shake- 
speare's company  of  actors  performed  in  a  theatre 
at  Blackfriars,  which  was  created  out  of  a  private 
residence  on  a  part  of  the  site  on  which  The  Times 
office  stands  now.  At  a  few  hundred  yards'  distance 
from  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  in  the  direction  of 
Cannon  Street,  Shakespeare,  too,  shortly  before  his 
death,  purchased  a  house. 

Thus  Shakespeare's  life  in  London  is  well  iden- 
tified with  four  districts  —  with  Bishopsgate,  with 
Shoreditch,  with  Southwark,  and  with  Blackfriars. 
Unhappily  for  students  of  Shakespeare's  life,  London 
has  been  more  than  once  remodelled  since  the  dram- 
atist sojourned  in  the  city.  The  buildings  and  lodg- 
ings, wdth  which  he  was  associated  in  Shoreditch, 
Southwark,  Bishopsgate,  or  Blackfriars,  have  long 
since  disappeared. 

It  is  not  practicable  to  follow  in  London  the  same 
historical  scheme  of  commemoration  which  has  been 
adopted  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  It  is  impossible  to 
recall  to  existence  the  edifices  in  which  Shakespeare 
pursued  his  London  career.  Archaeology^  could  do 
fittle  in  this  direction  that  was  satisfactory.  There 
would  be  an  awkward  incongruity  in  introducing  into 
the  serried  ranks  of  Shoreditch  warehouses  and 
Southwark  wharves  an  archaeological  restoration  of 
Ehzabethan  playhouse  or  private  residence.    Pictorial 


228       COMIMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

representations  of  the  Globe  Theatre  survive,  and 
it  might  be  possible  to  construct  something  that 
should  materialise  the  extant  drawings.  But  the 
genius  loci  has  fled  from  Southwark  and  from  Shore- 
ditch.  It  might  be  practicable  to  set  up  a  new 
model  of  an  Elizabethan  theatre  elsewhere  in  London, 
but  such  a  memorial  would  have  about  it  an  air  of 
unreality,  artificiality,  and  affectation  which  would 
not  be  in  accord  with  the  scholarly  spirit  of  an  his- 
toric or  biographic  commemoration.  The  device 
might  prove  of  archaeological  interest,  but  the  com- 
memorative purpose,  from  a  biographical  or  histor- 
ical point  of  view,  would  be  ill  served.  Wherever 
a  copy  of  an  Elizabethan  playhouse  were  brought 
to  birth  in  twentieth-century  London,  the  historic 
sense  in  the  onlooker  would  be  for  the  most  part 
irresponsive;  it  would  hardly  be  quickened. 


VI 


Apart  from  the  practical  difficulties  of  realising 
materially  Shakespeare's  local  associations  with  Lon- 
don, it  is  doubtful  if  the  mere  commemoration  in 
London  of  Shakespeare's  personal  connexion  with 
the  great  city  ought  to  be  the  precise  aim  of  those 
who  urge  the  propriety  of  erecting  a  national  monu- 
ment in  the  metropolis.  Shakespeare's  personal  re- 
lations with  London  can  in  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  be  treated  as  a  justification  in  only  the  second 
degree.  The  primary  justification  involves  a  some- 
what different  train  of  thought.  A  national  memorial 
of  Shakespeare  in  London  must  be  reckoned  of  small 
account  if  it  merely  aim  at  keeping  alive  in  public 


SHAKESPEARE'S  PLACE  IN  THE  WORLD      229 

memory  episodes  of  Shakespeare's  London  career. 
The  true  aim  of  a  national  London  memorial  must 
be  symbolical  of  a  larger  fact.  It  must  typify  Shake- 
speare's place  not  in  the  past,  but  in  the  present  Hfe  of 
the  nation  and  of  the  world.  It  ought  to  constitute  a 
perpetual  reminder  of  the  position  that  he  fills  iii  the 
present  economy,  and  is  likely  to  fill  in  the  future 
economy  of  human  thought,  for  those  whose  gromng 
absorption  in  the  narrowing  business  of  life  tends  to 
make  them  forget  it. 

The  day  is  long  since  past  when  vague  eulogy  of 
Shakespeare  is  permissible.  Shakespeare's  literary 
supremacy  is  as  iuWy  recognised  by  those  who  justly 
appreciate  literature  as  any  law  of  nature.  To  the 
man  and  woman  of  culture  in  all  ci\dlised  countries 
he  symboUses  the  potency  of  the  human  intellect. 
But  those  who  are  content  to  read  and  admire  him 
in  the  cloister  at  times  overlook  the  full  significance 
of  his  achievement  in  the  outer  world.  Critics  of 
all  nationalities  are  in  substantial  agreement  wdth 
the  romance-writer  Dumas,  who  pointed  out  that 
Shakespeare  is  more  than  the  greatest  of  dramatists; 
he  is  the  greatest  of  thinking  men. 

The  exalted  foreign  estimate  illustrates  the  fact 
that  Shakespeare  contributes  to  the  prestige  of  his 
nation  a  good  deal  beyond  repute  for  literary  power. 
He  is  not  merely  a  literary  ornament  of  our  British 
household.  It  is  largely  on  his  account  that  foreign 
nations  honour  his  country  as  an  intellectual  and 
spiritual  force.  Shakespeare  and  Newton  together 
give  England  an  intellectual  sovereignty  which  adds 
more  to  her  ''reputation  through  the  world"  than 
any  exploit  in  battle  or  statesmanship.  If,  again, 
Shakespeare's  pre-eminence  has  added  dignity  to  the 


230       COMjVIEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

name  of  Englishman  abroad,  it  has  also  quickened 
the  sense  of  unity  among  the  intelligent  sections  of 
the  EngHsh-speaking  peoples.  Admiration,  affec- 
tion for  his  work  has  come  to  be  one  of  the  strongest 
links  in  the  chain  which  binds  the  EngHsh-speaking 
peoples  together.  He  quickens  the  fraternal  sense 
among  all  who  speak  his  language. 

London  is  no  nominal  capital  of  the  kingdom  and 
the  Empire.  It  is  the  headquarters  of  British  in- 
fluence. Within  its  boundaries  are  assembled  the 
official  insignia  of  British  prestige.  It  is  the  mother- 
city  of  the  EngUsh-speaking  world.  To  ask  of  the 
citizens  of  London  some  outward  sign  that  Shake- 
speare is  a  living  source  of  British  prestige,  an  unify- 
ing factor  in  the  consolidation  of  the  British  Empire, 
and  a  powerful  element  in  the  maintenance  of  frater- 
nal relations  with  the  United  States,  seems  therefore 
no  unreasonable  demand.  Neither  cloistered  study 
of  his  plays,  nor  the  occasional  representation  of 
them  in  the  theatres,  brings  home  to  either  the 
English-speaking  or  the  English-reading  world  the 
full  extent  of  the  debt  that  England  owes  to  Shake- 
speare. A  monumental  memorial,  which  should 
symbolise  Shakespeare's  influence  in  the  universe, 
could  only  find  an  appropriate  and  effective  home  in 
the  capital  city  of  the  British  Empire.  It  is  this 
conviction,  and  no  narrower  point  of  view,  which 
gives  endeavour  to  commemorate  Shakespeare  in 
London  its  title  to  consideration. 


VII 

The  admitted  fact  that  Shakespeare's  fame  is 
established  beyond  risk  of  decay  does  not  place  him 


MILTON'S  ELEGY  231 

outside  the  range  of  conventional  methods  of  com- 
memoration. The  greater  a  man's  recognised  ser- 
vice to  his  fellows,  the  more  active  grows  in  normally 
constituted  minds  that  natural  commemorative  in- 
stinct, which  seeks  outward  and  tangible  expression. 
A  strange  fallacy  underlies  the  objection  that  has 
been  taken  to  any  commemoration  of  Shakespeare 
on  the  alleged  ground  that  Milton  warned  the  English 
people  of  all  time  against  erecting  a  monument  to 
Shakespeare. 

In  1630  Milton  asked  the  question  that  is  familiar 
to  thousands  of  tongues: 

What  needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones? 

By  way  of  answer  he  deprecated  any  such  "weak 
witness  of  his  name"  as  ''piled  stones"  or  ''star-y- 
pointing  pyramid."  The  poet-laureate  of  England 
echoed  Milton's  sentiment  in  1905.  He  roundly 
asserted  that  ''perishable  stuff"  is  the  fit  crown  of 
monumental  pedestals.  "Gods  for  themselves,"  he 
concluded,  "have  monument  enough." 

There  are  ample  signs  that  the  sentiment  to 
which  Milton  and  the  laureate  give  voice  has  a  good 
deal  of  pubUc  support.  None  the  less  the  poet- 
laureate's  conclusion  is  clearly  refuted  by  experience 
and  cannot  terminate  the  argument.  At  any  rate, 
in  the  classical  and  Renaissance  eras  monumental 
sculpture  was  in  habitual  request  among  those  who 
would  honour  both  immortal  gods  and  mortal  heroes 
— especially  mortal  heroes  who  had  distinguished 
themselves  in  literature  or  art. 

A  little  reflection  will  show,  Hkewise,  that  Milton's 
fer\dd  couplets  have  small  bearing  on  the  question 
at  issue  in  its  present  conditions.     Milton's  poem 


232       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

is  an  elegy  on  Shakespeare.  It  was  penned  when 
the  dramatist  had  lain  in  his  grave  less  than  fourteen 
years,  and  when  the  writer  was  in  his  twenty-second 
year.  The  exuberant  enthusiasm  of  youth  was 
couched  in  poetic  imagery  which  has  from  time 
immemorial  been  employed  in  panegjTics  of  great 
poets.  The  beautiful  figure  which  presents  a  great 
man's  work  as  his  only  lasting  monument  is  as 
old  as  poetry  itself.  The  conceit  courses  through 
the  classical  poetry  of  Greece  from  the  time  of 
Pindar,  and  through  that  of  Italy  from  the  time 
of  Ennius.  No  great  Renaissance  writer  of  modern 
Ital}^,  of  sixteenth-century  France,  or  of  Elizabethan 
England,  tired  of  arguing  that  the  poet's  deathless 
memorial  is  that  carved  by  his  own  pen.  Shake- 
speare himself  clothed  the  conceit  in  glowing  har- 
monies in  his  sonnets.  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  elegy  on 
the  dramatist,  adapted  the  time-honoured  figure 
when  he  hailed  his  dead  friend's  achievement  as  ''a 
monument  without  a  tomb." 

''The  truest  poetr}^  is  the  most  feigning,"  and, 
when  one  recalls  the  true  significance  and  influence 
of  great  sculptured  monuments  through  the  history 
of  the  civiUsed  world,  Milton's  poetic  argument 
can  only  be  accepted  in  what  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
called  "SL  soft  and  flexible  sense";  it  cannot  ''be 
called  unto  the  rigid  test  of  reason."  To  treat 
Milton's  eulogy  as  the  final  word  in  the  discussion 
of  the  subject  whether  or  no  Shakespeare  should 
have  a  national  monument,  is  to  come  into  conflict 
with  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Tennj-son,  Ruskin,  Dickens, 
and  all  the  greatest  men  of  letters  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  who  answered  the  question  in  the  affirma- 
tive.    It  is  to  discredit  crowds  of  admirers  of  great 


MONUMENTS  TO  CLASSICAL  POETS         233 

writers  in  classical  and  modern  ages,  who  have  com- 
memorated the  labours  of  poets  and  dramatists  in 
outward  and  visible  monuments. 

The  genius  of  the  great  Greek  dramatists  was 
not  underrated  by  their  countrymen.  Their  Hterary 
efforts  were  adjudged  to  be  true  memorials  of  their 
fame,  and  no  doubt  of  their  immortality  was  enter- 
tained. None  the  less,  the  city  of  Athens,  on  the 
proposition  of  the  Attic  orator,  Lycurgus,  erected  in 
honour  of  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  statues 
which  ranked  with  the  most  beautiful  adornments 
of  the  Greek  capital.  Calderon  and  Goethe,  Camo- 
ens  and  Schiller,  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Burns  enjoy 
reputations  which  are  smaller,  it  is  true,  than 
Shakespeare's,  but  are,  at  the  same  time,  like  his, 
of  both  national  and  universal  significance.  In 
memory  of  them  all,  monuments  have  been  erected 
as  tokens  of  their  fellow-countrymen's  veneration 
and  gratitude  for  the  influence  which  their  poetry 
wields. 

The  fame  of  these  men's  writings  never  stood 
in  any  ''need"  of  monumental  corroboration.  The 
sculptured  memorial  testified  to  the  sense  of  gratitude 
which  their  writings  generated  in  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  their  readers. 

Again,  the  great  musicians  and  the  great  painters 
live  in  their  work  in  a  singularly  vivid  sense.  Music 
and  painting  are  more  direct  in  popular  appeal  than 
great  poetry.  Yet  none  can  ridicule  the  sentiment 
which  is  embodied  in  the  statue  of  Beethoven  at 
Bonn,  or  in  that  of  Paolo  Veronese  at  Verona.  To 
accept  literally  the  youthful  judgment  of  Milton  and 
his  imitators  is  to  condemn  sentiments  and  practices 
which  are  in  universal  vogue  among  civilised  peoples. 


234       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

It  is  to  deny  to  the  Poets'  Corner  in  Westminster 
Abbey  a  rational  title  to  existence. 

To  commemorate  a  great  man  by  a  statue  in  a 
public  place  in  the  central  sphere  of  his  influence  is, 
indeed,  a  custom  inseparable  from  civilised  life.  The 
theoretic  moralist's  reminder  that  monuments  of 
human  greatness  sooner  or  later  come  to  dust  is  a 
doctrine  too  discouraging  of  all  human  effort  to 
exert  much  practical  effect.  Moniunents  are,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  intelligent,  tributes  for  services  rendered 
by  great  men  to  posterity.  But  incidentally  they 
have  an  educational  value.  They  help  to  fix  the 
attention  of  the  thoughtless  on  facts  which  may, 
in  the  absence  of  outward  symbols,  escape  notice. 
They  may  act  as  incentives  to  thought.  They  may 
convert  the  thoughtless  into  the  thoughtful.  Wide 
as  are  the  ranks  of  Shakespeare's  readers,  they  are 
not,  in  England  at  any  rate,  incapable  of  extension; 
and,  whatever  is  likely  to  call  the  attention  of  those 
who  are  as  yet  outside  the  pale  of  knowledge  of 
Shakespeare  to  what  Ues  within  it,  deserves  respect- 
ful consideration. 

It  is  never  inconsistent  with  a  nation's  dignity 
for  it  to  give  conspicuous  expression  of  gratitude 
to  its  benefactors,  among  whom  great  writers  take 
first  rank.  Monuments  of  fitting  character  give 
that  conspicuous  expression.  Bacon,  the  most  en- 
lightened of  English  thinkers,  argued,  within  a  few 
years  of  Shakespeare's  death,  that  no  self-respect- 
ing people  could  safely  omit  to  erect  statues  of 
those  who  had  contributed  to  the  genuine  advance 
of  their  knowledge  or  prestige.  The  visitors  to 
Bacon's  imaginary  island  of  New  Atlantis  saw 
statues  erected  at  the  public  expense  in  memory 


SYMBOLISATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  GENIUS  235 

of  all  who  had  won  great  distinction  in  the  arts 
or  sciences.  The  richness  of  the  memorial  varied 
according  to  the  value  of  the  achievement.  ''These 
statues,"  the  observer  noted,  ''are  some  of  brass, 
some  of  marble  and  touchstone,  some  of  cedar 
and  other  special  woods,  gilt  and  adorned,  some 
of  iron,  some  of  silver,  some  of  gold."  No  other 
external  recognition  of  great  intellectual  service  was 
deemed,  in  Bacon's  Utopia,  of  equal  appropriateness. 
Bacon's  mature  judgment  deserves  greater  regard 
than  the  splendid  imagery  of  Milton's  budding 
muse. 

VIII 

In  order  to  satisfy  the  commemorative  instinct 
in  a  people,  it  is  necessar\%  as  Bacon  pointed  out, 
strictly  to  adapt  the  means  to  the  end.  The  essential 
object  of  a  national  monument  to  a  great  man  is 
to  pay  tribute  to  his  greatness,  to  express  his  fellow- 
men's  sense  of  his  service.  No  blunder  could  be 
graver  than  to  confuse  the  issue  by  seeking  to  make 
the  commemoration  serve  any  secondar}^  or  collateral 
purpose.  It  may  be  very  useful  to  erect  hospitals 
or  schools.  It  may  help  in  the  dissemination  of 
knowledge  and  appreciation  of  Shakespearean  drama 
for  the  public  to  endow  a  theatre,  which  should  be 
devoted  to  the  performance  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 
The  public  interest  calls  loudly  for  a  playhouse  that 
shall  be  under  public  control.  Promoters  of  such 
a  commendable  endeavour  might  find  their  labours 
facihtated  by  associating  their  project  with  Shake- 
speare's name — with,  the  proposed  commemoration 
of  Shakespeare.  But  the  true  aim  of  the  com- 
memoration will  be  frustrated  if  it  be  linked  with 


236       COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

any  purpose  of  utility,  however  commendable,  with 
anything  beyond  a  symbolisation  of  Shakespeare's 
mighty  genius  and  influence.  To  attempt  aught  else 
is  ''wrenching  the  true  cause  the  false  way."  A 
worthy  memorial  to  Shakespeare  will  not  satisfy  the 
just  working  of  the  commemorative  instinct,  unless 
it  take  the  sculpturesque  and  monumental  shape 
which  the  great  tradition  of  antiquity  has  sanctioned. 
A  monument  to  Shakespeare  should  be  a  monument 
and  nothing  besides. 

Bacon's  doctrine  that  the  greater  the  achieve- 
ment that  is  commemorated  the  richer  must  be  the 
outward  symbol,  implies  that  a  memorial  to  Shake- 
speare must  be  a  work  of  art  of  the  loftiest  merit 
conceivable.  Unless  those  who  promote  the  move- 
ment concentrate  their  energies  on  an  object  of 
beauty,  unless  they  free  the  movement  of  all  suspicion 
that  the  satisfaction  of  the  commemorative  instinct 
is  to  be  a  secondary  and  not  the  primary  aim,  un- 
less they  resolve  that  the  Shakespeare  memorial  in 
London  is  to  be  a  monument  pure  and  simple,  and 
one  as  perfect  as  art  can  make  it,  then  the  effort  is 
imdeserving  of  national  support. 

IX 

This  conclusion  suggests  the  inevitable  objection 
that  sculpture  in  England  is  not  in  a  condition  favour- 
able to  the  execution  of  a  great  piece  of  monumental 
art.  Past  experience  in  London  does  not  make  one 
very  sanguine  that  it  is  possible  to  realise  in  statuary 
a  worthy  conception  of  a  Shakespearean  memorial. 
The  various  stages  through  which  recent  efforts  to 
promote  sculptured  memorials  in  London  have  passed 


LONDON  STATUES  237 

suggest  the  mock  turtle's  definition  in  Alice  in  Won- 
derland of  the  four  branches  of  arithmetic — Ambition, 
Distraction,  UgHfication,  and  Derision.  Save  the 
old  statue  of  James  the  Second,  at  Whitehall,  and  the 
new  statue  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  which  stands  at  a 
disadvantage  on  its  present  site  beneath  Westminster 
Hall,  there  is  scarcely  a  sculptured  portrait  in  the 
public  places  of  London  which  is  not 

A  fixed  figure  for  the  time  of  scorn 
To  point  his  slow  unmoving  finger  at. 

London  does  not  lack  statues  of  men  of  letters. 
There  are  statues  of  Burns  and  John  Stuart  Mill  on 
the  Thames  Embankment,  of  Byron  in  Hamilton 
Place,  and  of  Carlyle  on  Chelsea  Embankment.  But 
all  convey  an  impression  of  insignificance,  and  thereby 
fail  to  satisfy  the  nation's  commemorative  instinct. 

The  taste  of  the  British  nation  needs  rigorous  con- 
trol when  it  seeks  to  pay  tribute  to  benefactors  by 
means  of  sculptured  monuments.  During  the  last 
forty  years  a  vast  addition  has  been  made  throughout 
Great  Britain — with  most  depressing  effect — to  the 
number  of  sculptured  memorials  in  the  open  air. 
The  people  have  certainly  shown  far  too  enthusiastic 
and  too  inconsiderate  a  liberality  in  commemorating 
by  means  of  sculptured  monuments  the  virtues  of 
Prince  Albert  and  the  noble  character  and  career  of 
the  late  Queen  Victoria.  The  deduction  to  be  drawn 
from  the  numberless  statues  of  Queen  Victoria  and 
her  consort  is  not  exhilarating.  British  taste  never 
showed  itself  to  worse  effect.  The  general  impres- 
sion produced  by  the  most  ambitious  of  all  these 
memorials,  the  Albert  Memorial  in  Kensington 
Gardens,  is  especially  deplorable.     The  gilt  figure  of 


238       COMIVIEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Prince  seems  to  defy  every  principle  that  fine  art 
should  respect.  The  endeavour  to  produce  imposing 
effect  by  dint  of  hugeness  is,  in  all  but  inspired  hands, 
certain  to  issue  in  ugliness. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  take  too 
gloomy  a  view  of  the  situation.  The  prospect  may 
easily  be  painted  in  too  dismal  colours.  It  is  a  com- 
monplace with  foreign  historians  of  art  to  assert  that 
English  sculpture  ceased  to  flourish  when  the  build- 
ing of  the  old  Gothic  cathedrals  came  to  an  end. 
But  Stevens's  monument  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  despite  the  imperfect  execu- 
tion of  the  sculptor's  design,  shows  that  the  monu- 
mental art  of  England  has  proved  itself,  at  a  recent 
date,  capable  of  reahsing  a  great  commemorative 
conception.  There  are  signs,  too,  that  at  least  three 
living  sculptors  might  in  favourable  conditions  prove 
worthy  competitors  of  Stevens.  At  least  one  literary 
memorial  in  the  British  Isles,  the  Scott  monument 
in  Edinburgh,  which  cost  no  more  than  £16,000, 
satisfies  a  nation's  commemorative  aspiration. 
There  the  natural  environment  and  an  architectural 
setting  of  fine  conception  reinforce  the  effect  of  sculp- 
ture. The  whole  typifies  with  fitting  dignity  the 
admiring  affection  which  gathers  about  Scott's  name. 
This  successful  realisation  of  a  commemorative  aim — 
not  wholly  dissimilar  from  that  which  should  inspire 
a  Shakespeare  memorial — must  check  forebodings  of 
despair. 

There  are  obviously  greater  difficulties  in  erecting 
a  monument  to  Shakespeare  in  London  than  in 
erecting  a  monument  to  Scott  in  Edinburgh.  There 
is  no  site  in  London  that  will  compare  with  the 
gardens    of    Princes    Street    in    Edinburgh.     It    is 


SITES  IN  LONDON  239 

essential  that  a  Shakespeare  memorial  should  oc- 
cupy the  best  site  that  London  can  offer.  Ideally 
the  best  site  for  any  great  monument  is  the  summit 
of  a  gently  rising  eminence,  with  a  roadway  directly 
approaching  it  and  circling  round  it.  In  1864, 
when  the  question  of  a  fit  site  for  a  Shakespeare 
memorial  in  London  was  warmly  debated,  a  too 
ambitious  scheme  recommended  the  formation  of 
an  avenue  on  the  model  of  the  Champs-Elysees 
from  the  top  of  Portland  Place  across  Primrose 
Hill;  and  at  the  end  of  the  avenue,  on  the  summit 
of  Primrose  Hill,  at  an  elevation  of  207  feet  above 
the  river  Thames,  the  Shakespeare  monument  was 
to  stand.  This  was  and  is  an  impracticable  proposal. 
The  site  which  in  1864  received  the  largest  measure 
of  approbation  was  a  spot  in  the  Green  Park,  near 
Piccadilly.  A  third  suggestion  of  the  same  date  was 
the  bank  of  the  river  Thames,  which  was  then  called 
Thamesway,  but  was  on  the  point  of  conversion  into 
the  Thames  Embankment.  Recent  reconstruction 
of  Central  London — of  the  district  north  of  the 
Strand — by  the  London  County  Council  now  widens 
the  field  of  choice.  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  a 
site  within  the  centre  of  London  life.  But  an  ele- 
vated monumental  structure  on  the  banks  of  the 
Thames  seems  to  meet  at  the  moment  with  the  wid- 
est approval.  In  any  case,  no  site  that  is  mean  or 
cramped  would  be  permissible  if  the  essential  needs 
of  the  situation  are  to  be  met. 

A  monument  that  should  be  sufficiently  imposing 
would  need  an  architectural  framework.  But  the 
figure  of  the  poet  must  occupy  the  foremost  place 
in  the  design.  Herein  lies  another  embarrassment. 
It  is  difficult   to   determine  which   of  the   extant 


240        COMMEMORATION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

portraits  the  sculptor  ought  to  follow.  The  bust 
in  Stratford  Church,  the  print  in  the  First  FoUo, 
and  possibly  the  Chandos  painting  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery,  are  honest  efforts  to  present  a 
faithful  likeness.  But  they  are  crudely  executed, 
and  are  posthumous  sketches  largely  depending 
on  the  artist's  memor>\  The  sculptor  would  be 
compelled  to  work  in  the  spirit  of  the  historian, 
who  recreates  a  past  event  from  the  indication 
given  him  by  an  illiterate  or  fragmentary  chronicle 
or  inscription.  He  would  be  bound  to  endow  with 
artistic  life  those  features  in  which  the  authentic 
portraits  agree,  but  the  highest  effort  of  the  imagina- 
tion would  be  needed  to  create  an  impression  of 
artistic  truth. 

The  success  of  a  Shakespeare  memorial  will 
ultimately  depend  on  the  pecuniary  support  that 
the  public  accord  it.  But  in  the  initial  stage  of 
the  movement  all  rests  on  the  discovery  of  a  sculptor 
capable  of  realising  the  significance  of  a  national 
commemoration  of  the  greatest  of  the  nation's,  or 
indeed  of  the  world's,  heroes.  It  would  be  well  to 
settle  satisfactorily  the  question  of  such  an  ar- 
tist's existence  before  anything  else.  The  first  step 
that  any  organising  committee  of  a  Shakespeare 
memorial  should  therefore  take,  in  my  view,  would 
be  to  invite  sculptors  of  every  country  to  propose 
a  design.  The  monument  should  be  the  best  that 
artistic  genius  could  contrive — the  artistic  genius 
of  the  world.  There  may  be  better  sculptors 
abroad  than  at  home.  The  universality  of  the  ap- 
peal which  Shakespeare's  achievement  makes,  just- 
ifies a  competition  among  artists  of  every  race  or 
nationality. 


A  TRIBUTE  OF  PERSONAL  DEVOTION       241 

The  crucial  decision  as  to  whether  the  capacity 
to  execute  the  monument  is  available,  should  be 
entrusted  to  a  committee  of  taste,  to  a  committee  of 
liberal-minded  connoisseurs  who  command  general 
confidence.  If  this  jury  decide  by  their  verdict  that 
the  present  conditions  of  art  permit  the  production 
of  a  great  memorial  of  Shakespeare  on  just  principles, 
then  a  strenuous  appeal  for  funds  may  be  inaugu- 
rated with  likelihood  of  success.  It  is  hopeless  to 
reverse  these  methods  of  procedure.  If  funds  are 
first  invited  before  rational  doubts  as  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  proper  application  of  them  are  dispelled, 
it  is  improbable  that  the  response  will  be  satis- 
factory or  that  the  issue  of  the  movement  of  1905 
will  differ  from  that  of  1821  or  1864. 

In  1864  Victor  Hugo  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  expenses  of  a  Shakespeare  memorial  in  London 
ought  to  be  defrayed  by  the  British  Government. 
There  is  small  likelihood  of  assistance  from  that 
source.  Individual  effort  can  alone  be  relied  upon; 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  it  be  desirable  to  seek  official 
aid.  A  great  national  memorial  of  Shakespeare 
in  London,  if  it  come  into  being  at  all  on  the  lines 
which  would  alone  justify  its  existence,  ought  to 
embody  individual  enthusiasm,  ought  to  express 
with  fitting  dignity  the  personal  sense  of  indebted- 
ness and  admiration  which  fills  the  hearts  of  his 
fellow-men. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acting,  importance  of,  in  Shake- 
spearean drama,  13;  evil  effects 
of  long  runs,  14;  Shake- 
speare on,  45,  47. 

Actor-manager,  his  merits  and  de- 
fects, 125,   126. 

Actors,  training  of,  139;  English, 
in  France,  203.  See  also  Ben- 
son, Mr.  F.  R.,  and  Boys. 

^schylus,  statue  of,  233. 

Albert,  Prince  (consort),  and 
Shakespeare's  birthplace,  222 ; 
statues  of,  237,  238. 

Alleyn,  Edward,  191,   194. 

Annual  Register  of  1770,  194. 

Aristotle,  Shakespeare's  mention 
of,  144,  145;  Bacon's  study  of, 
145. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  Shakespeare, 
29. 

Astronomy,  Shakespeare  on,  146. 

Athens,  statuary  at,  233. 

Aubrey,  John,  his  gossip  of  Shake- 
speare, 66,   67. 

Austria,  subsidised  theatres  in, 
131,  136. 

Bacon,  Anthony,  in  France,  203. 
Bacon,        Francis,       philosophical 

method    of,    143 ;    on    memorial 

monuments    in     2iew    Atlantis, 

234,  235. 
Bacon,  Sir  Nicholas,  his  fame  in 

France,  204. 
Badger,  Mr.  Richard,  proposal  for 

a  Shakespeare  monument,  219. 
Bannister,  music  for  Tlie  Tempest, 

106,  107. 
Barker,  Mr.  Granville,  as  Richard 

II.,  13  n. 


Basse,  William,  his  tribute  to 
Shakespeare,  50. 

Beeston,  Christopher,  Elizabethan 
actor,  64. 

Beeston,  William  the  first,  patron 
of  Nash,  63,  64;  second,  his  the- 
atrical career,  65,  66;  his  gos- 
sip about  Shakespeare,  65;  his 
conversation,  66;  Aubrey's  ac- 
count of,  67. 

Beethoven,  statue  of,  233. 

Beljame,  M.  Alexandre,  on  Eng- 
lish literature,  201 ;  death  of, 
201. 

Benson,  Mr.  F.  R.,  his  company  of 
actors.  111;  his  principles,  112 
seq. ;  list  of  Shakespearean  plays 
produced  by,  114,  115  n. ;  his 
production  of  Hamlet  una- 
bridged, 116-18;  his  training  of 
actors,  119;  his  services  to 
Shakespeare,  121;  his  pupils  on 
the  London  stage,  130. 

Berkenhout,  John,  195. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  73;  contributes  to 
Rowe's  biography,  73,  76; 
his  rendering  of  Eamlet,  101, 
102. 

Biography,  art  of,  in  England, 
51  seq. 

Bishop,  Sir  William,  76. 

Bishopsgate  ( London ) ,  Shake- 
speare at,  226,  227. 

Blackfriars,  Shakespeare's  house 
at,  227. 

Boileau  and  English  literature, 
200. 

Bolingbroke   (in  Richard  II.),  pa- 
triotism of,  173,  174. 
245 


246 


INDEX 


Bowman,  John,  actor,  69;  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  70. 

Boya  in  women's  parts  in  Eliza- 
bethan theatres,  19,  41 ;  aban- 
donment of  the  practice, 
43;  superseded  by  women,  88, 
89. 

Buchanan,  George,  his  plays,  204. 

Burbage,  Richard,  Shakespeare's 
friend  and  fellow  actor,  33. 

Burns,  Mr.  John,  131. 

Burns,  Robert,  French  study  of, 
201 ;  monument  to,  233,  237. 

Byron,  Lord,  on  Petrarch  at  Ar- 
qua,  225 ;  statue  of,  237. 

Calderon,  136,  monument  to,  233. 

Calvert,  Charles  A.,  his  Shake- 
spearean productions  at  Man- 
chester, 12,  3  n. 

Camoens,  monument  to,  233. 

Capital  and  the  literary  drama, 
124-28. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  statue  of,  237. 

Catiline's  Conspiracy,  by  Ben  Jon- 
son,  31. 

Ceremony,  Shakespeare  on,  157, 
158. 

Chantrey,  Sir  Francis,  and  com- 
memoration of  Shakespeare,  215. 

Charlecote,  Shakespeare's  esca- 
pade at,  76. 

Chaucer,  Greoflfrey,  French  influ- 
ence on,  199. 

Clarendon,  Lord,  on  Shakespeare, 
79. 

"Cockpit,"  Drury  Lane,  65,  86; 
Whitehall,  87  and  n. 

Coleman,  John,  on  the  subsidised 
theatre,  132. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  and  commemora- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  215. 

Congreve,  William,  91. 

Coriolanus  and  the  patriotic  in- 
stinct, 178,   179. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  statue  of, 
237. 


Davenant,  Robert,  Sir  William's 
brother,   70. 

D'Avenant,  Sir  William,  theatri- 
cal manager,  67 ;  his  youth  at 
Oxford,  69 ;  relations  in  boyhood 
with  Shakespeare,  70;  elegy  on 
Shakespeare,  71 ;  champion  of 
Shakespeare's  fame,  7 1 ;  his 
story  of  Shakespeare  and  South- 
ampton, 72;  his  influence  on 
Betterton,  72;  manager  of  the 
Duke's  company,  87  n. ;  as  dram- 
atist, 98;  his  adaptations  of 
Shakespeare,  103-05,  106  n., 
108. 

Deschamps,  Eustace,  on  Chauoer, 
199. 

Desportes,  Philippe,  and  Eliza- 
bethan poetry,  199. 

D'Israeli,  Isaac,  on  Steevens's  for- 
gery, 195. 

Downes,  John,  prompter  and  stage 
annalist,  63. 

Dramatic  societies  in  England, 
129. 

Dress,  Shakespeare  on  extrava- 
gant, 185. 

Drimkenness,  Shakespeare  on,  185. 

Dryden,  John,  on  William  Bee- 
ston,  66;  as  dramatist,  91;  his 
share  in  the  adaptation  of  The 
Tempest,  105. 

DuBellay,  Joachim,  and  Eliza- 
bethan poetry,  199. 

Ducis,  Jean  Frangois,  his  trans- 
lation of  Shakespeare,  207, 
208. 

Dugdale,  Sir  William,  74. 

Dumas  pire,  on  Shakespeare,  206; 
his  translation  of  Hamlet,  209- 
11. 

Dyce,  Alexander,  on  Steevens's  for- 
gery, 196,  197. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  summons  Shake- 
speare to  Greenwich,  31. 
Elizabethan  stage  society,  13  n. 


INDEX 


247 


England,  Shakespeare  on  history 
of,  180. 

Ennius  on  poetic  fame,  232. 

Etherege,  Sir  George,  91. 

Eton  College,  debate  about  Shake- 
speare at,  78. 

Euripides,  statue  of,  233. 

Evelj-n,  John,  on  Hamlet,  90. 

Farquhar,  George,  91. 

Faulconbridge  (in  King  John), 
patriotism  of,  174. 

Fletcher,  John,  his  Custom  of  the 
Country,  92,  93;  its  obscenity, 
93. 

Folio,  The  First  [of  Shakespeare's 
Plays],  actors'  cooperation  in, 
59 ;  list  of  actors  in,  61. 

Folio,  The  Third  [of  Shakespeare's 
Plays],  purchased  by  Pepys,  94. 

Folio,  The  Fourth  [of  Shake- 
speare's Plays],  in  Pepysian  Li- 
brary, 94. 

France,  subsidised  theatres  in, 
131,  134;  Shakespeare  in,  198 
seq.;  English  actors  in,  203. 

Freedom  of  the  will,  Shakespeare 
on,  166. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  his  Worthies  of 
England,  52;  notice  of  Shake- 
speare, 52. 

Garrick,  David,  his  stage  costume, 
19. 

Gentleman's  Magazine  of  1801, 
195. 

George  FV.  and  commemoration  of 
Shakespeare,  215. 

German  drama,   129,  135,  136. 

Germany,  subsidised  theatres  in, 
131,   i34. 

Goethe,  136;  monument  to,  233. 

Greene,  Robert,  French  transla- 
tion of  romance  by,  199. 

Grendon,  tradition  of  Shakespeare 
at,  77. 


"  Grenovicus,"  contributor  to  Gen- 
tleman's Magazine,  195. 

Hales,  John,  of  Eton,  78. 

Hall,  Bp.  Joseph,  French  transla- 
tion of  works  by,  199. 

Hart,  Charles,  actor  and  Shake- 
speare's grand  nephew,  59,  68. 

Hauptmann,  135. 

Henry  V.  on  kingly  ceremony,  157 ; 
patriotism  of,  175,  182. 

Heywood,  Thomas,  projected  Lives 
of  the  Poets,  54  n. ;  his  affection 
for  Shakespeare,  65 ;  his  Apol- 
ogy for  Actors,  65. 

History  plays  of  Shakespeare, 
character  of,  180. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  in  France,  200. 

Howe,  Josias,  on  a  Shakespeare 
tradition,  77. 

Hugo,  Victor,  on  Shakespeare, 
206. 

Imagination  in   the  audience,  22, 

47,  48. 
Ingres,     Jean,     his     painting     of 

Shakespeare,  206. 
Irving,    Sir    Henry,   experience   of 

Shakespearean      spectacle,      10; 

and    the    literary    drama,    123; 

and  the  municipal  theatre,  132; 

and  French  drama,  200. 
Irving,  Washington,  and  commem- 
oration of  Shakespeare,  215. 

James  I.,  his  alleged  letter  to 
Shakespeare,  72. 

James  II.,  statue  of,  237. 

John  of  Gaunt  (in  Richard  II.), 
dying  speech  of,  115-16,  181. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  on  false  patriots, 
171. 

Jonson,  Ben,  testimony  to  Shake- 
speare's popularity,  29 ;  his 
classical  tragedies  compared 
with  Shakespeare's,  30;  his 
elegy  on  Shakespeare,  50,  232; 


248 


INDEX 


his  dialectical  powers  contrasted 
with  Shakespeare's,  53;  on  the 
players'  praise  of  Shakespeare, 
60;  his  son  Shakespeare's  god- 
son, 61 ;  Beeston's  talk  of,  67 ; 
popularity  of  his  plays  at  the 
Restoration,  91,  92. 
Jusserand,  M.  Jules,  on  English 
literature,  202;  his  Shakespeare 
in  France,  203. 

Kean,  Charles,  experience  of 
Shakespearean  spectacle,  9;  Ma- 
cready's  criticism  of,  14. 

Kemp,  William,  Elizabethan  come- 
dian, 33. 

Killigrew,  Tom,  manager  of  the 
King's  company,  87  n. 

Kingship,  Shakespeare  on,  155- 
60,  180-82. 

Kirkman,  Francis,  his  account  of 
William  Beeston  the  second,  66. 

Lacy,  John,  actor,  67 ;  acquaint- 
ance with  Ben  Jonson,  68; 
adaptation  of  The  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,  108. 

Lawrence,  Sir  Thomas,  and  com- 
memoration of  Shakespeare, 
215. 

Lessing,  136. 

Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  (Portugal 
Row),  Theatre  of,  86,  87  and  n. 

Literary  drama  on  the  modern 
stage,  123 ;  antagonism  of  cap- 
ital to,   126-28. 

Lives  of  the  Poets  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  54  and  n. 

Locke,  John,  in  France,  200. 

Locke,  Matthew,  Shakespearean 
music  of,   105,  108. 

Logic,  Shakespeare  on,  146. 

London,  Shakespeare's  association 
with,  226  seq.;  statues  in,  236, 
237 ;  proposed  sites  for  Shake- 
speare monument,  239. 


London  County  Council  and  the 
theatre,  130,  131;  and  subsi- 
dised enlightenment,  133;  and 
Shakespeare  monument,  219. 

London  Trades  Coimcil  and  the 
theatre,  132, 

Lowin,  John,  original  actor  in 
Shakespeare's  plays,  61;  coached 
by  Shakespeare  in  part  of  Ham- 
let, 63,  71,  73. 

Lycurgus,  Attic  orator,  233. 

Macready,  W,  C,  his  criticism  of 
spectacle,  14. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  Shake- 
peare's  senior  by  two  months, 
37,  193. 

Massinger,  Philip,  his  Bondman, 
92,  93. 

Mathews,  Charles,  on  a  monu- 
ment of  Shakespeare,  214. 

Metaphysics,  Shakespeare  on,  146- 
48. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  statue  of,  237. 

Milton,  his  elegy  on  Shakespeare, 
51,  231. 

Molifere,  accepted  methods  of  pro- 
ducing his  plays,  16. 

Montaigne,  Michel  de,  and  An- 
thony Bacon,  203 ;  his  essays  in 
English,  204. 

Moore,  Thomas,  and  commemora- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  215. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  his  Utopia  in 
France,  204. 

Municipal  theatre,  its  justifica- 
tion, 122 ;  in  Europe,  134. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  on  Shakespeare, 
206. 

Nash,   John,    and   commemoration 

of  Shakespeare,  215. 
Nash,  Thomas,  64. 
Nodier,    Charles,    his    Persies    de 

Shakespeare,  211-13. 
Norwegian  drama,  129. 


INDEX 


249 


Obedience,  the  duty  of,  161. 

Oldys,  William,  antiquary,  68,  69. 

Opera  in  England,  131. 

Oxford,  the  Crown  Inn  at,  69; 
Shakespeare  at,  70;  visitors 
from,  to  Stratford,  75-77. 

Patriotism,  Shakespeare  on,  170 
seq. 

Peele,  George,  alleged  letter  of, 
189  seq. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  his  playgoing  ex- 
periences, 82-87 ;  on  Eliza- 
bethan and  Jacobean  drama, 
91-93;  on  Shakespeare,  94  seq.; 
hia  attitude  to  poetic  drama,  95, 
96 ;  his  miisical  setting  of  "  To 
be  or  not  to  be,"  100. 

Petrarch,  his  tomb  at  Arqua,  225. 

Phelps,  Samuel,  at  Sadler's  Wells, 
1 1 ;  his  mode  of  producing 
Shakespeare,  12;  on  a  state 
theatre  in  London,  120;  on  pub- 
lic control  of  theatres,  140,  141. 

Philosophy,  Shakespeare's  atti- 
tude to,  142  seq. 

Pindar,  on  poetic  fame,  232. 

Platter,  Thomas,  journal  of  his 
London  visit  (1599),  38. 

Playhouses  in  London,  "  Black- 
friars,"  227;  Drury  Lane,  86, 
87,  and  n.;  the  "Globe,"  227; 
the  "Red  Bull,"  86;  Sadler's 
Wells,  11;  Salisbury  Court, 
Whitefriars,  66,  86;  "The 
Theatre  "  at  Shoreditch,  37,  227. 

Pope,  Alexander,  and  French  lit- 
erature, 199;  on  the  Shake- 
speare cenotaph,  216. 

Richardson  Samuel,  in  France, 
200. 

Robinson,  Richard,  actor,  68. 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  and  Eliza- 
bethan poetry,  199;  in  England, 
203. 


Rousseau,  J.  J.,  and  English  lit- 
erature, 200. 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  Shakespeare's 
first  formal  biographer,  54;  his 
acknowledgment  to  Betterton, 
73;  his  biography  of  Shake- 
speare, 79,  80. 

Royal  ceremony,  irony  of,  158. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  on  patriotism, 
172. 

Sadler's  Wells  Theatre,  11. 

Sand,  George,  on  Shakespeare,  206. 

Sardou,  M.  Victorien,  work  of.  200. 

Scenery,  its  purpose,  5 ;  useless- 
ness  of  realism,  23. 

Schiller,  on  the  German  stage,  136; 
monument  to,  233. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  and  commemo- 
ration of  Shakespeare,  215,  232; 
Edinburgh  monument  of,  238. 

Sedley,  Sir  Charles,  91. 

Seneca,  on  mercy,  153  n. 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  67 ;  adaptation 
of  The  Tempest,  106  n. 

Shakespeare,  Gilbert,  actor,  68. 

Shakespeare,  William,  his  creation 
of  the  ghost  in  Hamlet,  27;  con- 
temporary popularity  of.  29 ; 
at  Court,  31 ;  early  London 
career,  32 ;  advice  to  the  actor, 
45;  his  modest  estimate  of  the 
actor's  powers,  47 ;  elegies  on 
death  of,  49;  Fuller's  notice  of, 
52 ;  early  biographies  of,  54 ; 
oral  tradition  of,  in  seventeenth 
century,  55 ;  similarity  of  expe- 
rience \vith  that  of  contempo- 
rary dramatists  and  actors,  57 ; 
Elizabethan  players'  commenda- 
tion of,  60 ;  resentment  with  a 
publisher,  65 ;  William  Bee- 
ston's  reminiscences  of.  67 ; 
Stratford  gossip  about,  74-76 ; 
present  state  of  biographical 
knowledge,  81;  his  attitude  to 
philosophy,  142  seq.;   his  intui- 


250 


INDEX 


tion,  149,  150;  concealment  of 
his  personality,  150 ;  his  private 
sentiments,  151;  on  mercy,  152, 
153;  on  rulers  of  states,  154;  on 
divine  right  of  kings,  159;  on 
obedience,  IGl ;  on  social  order, 
102,  1G3;  on  freedom  of  the  will, 
166;  on  women's  will,  168;  his 
humour  and  optimism,  169; 
on  patriotism,  170  seq.;  on  Eng- 
lish history,  180';  on  social 
foibles,  184-86;  commemoration 
of,  in  London,  214  seq.;  por- 
traits of,  240. 
Shakespearean  drama,  attitude  of 
students  and  actors  to,  1 ;  cost- 
liness of  modern  production,  2; 
the  simple  method  and  the  pub- 
lic, 8;  Charles  Kean's  spectacu- 
lar method,  9;  Irving's  method, 
10;  plays  produced  by  Phelps, 
11;  reliance  on  the  actor,  13; 
in  Vienna,  17;  advantage  of  its 
performance  constantly  and  in 
variety,  24 ;  importance  of  minor 
roles  of,  115;  its  ethical  signifi- 
cance, 164,  165;  in  France,  198 
seq.;  and  British  prestige,  229. 
Separate  Plats: 
Antony      and      Cleopatra      at 

Vienna,  17. 
Coriolanus,  political  significance 

of,  164,  and  patriotism,  178. 
Cymbeline,  III,  i,  16-22,  quoted 

on  patriotism,  178. 
Hamlet,  Shakespeare's  perform- 
ance of  the  ghost,  27 ;  early 
popularity  of  the  play,  29; 
Pepys's  criticism  of,  95,  99- 
101 ;  the  stage  abridgment 
contrasted  with  the  full  text, 
117-19. 
Henry    IT.     (Part    I),    Pepys's 

criticism  of,  97. 
Henry     Y.,     meaning     of     first 

chorus,  19. 
Julius  Co'sar  preferred  to  con- 


Separate  Plays — Cont'd. 

temporary  playgoers  to  Jon- 
son's  Catiline,  31 ;  political 
significance  of,   164. 

Lear,  King,  performed  at  Eliza- 
beth's Court,  36;  quarto  of, 
36. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  performed 
at  Court,  34;  title-page  of  the 
quarto,  35. 

Macbeth,  Pepys's  criticism  of, 
104-5. 

Measure  for  Measure,  ethics  of, 
164. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The, 
title-page  of  the  quarto,  36; 
Pepys's  criticism  of,  97. 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A, 
Pepys's  criticism  of,  96. 

Othello,  Pepys's  criticism  of,  95, 
98,  99. 

Richard  II.,  purport  of  John  of 
Gaunt's  dying  speech,  115-16. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  Pepys's  criti- 
cism of,  96. 

Tempest,  The,  Pepys's  criticism 
of,  105-8;  spectacular  produc- 
tion of,  at  Restoration,  107. 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  II,  ii,  166, 
on  Aristotle,  144,  145 ;  I,  iii, 
101-24,  on  social  equilibrium, 
163. 

Turclfih  Xight,  Pepys's  criticism 
of,  96. 
Sheffield.  John,   Earl  of  Mulgrave 

and   Duke   of   Buckinghamshire, 

72. 
Shoreditch,  The  Theatre  in,  227. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  French  transla- 
tions of  Arcadia,  199,  204. 
Somerset,  the   "  proud "   Duke  of, 

on  Shakespeare,  79. 
Sophocles,  statue  of,  233. 
Southampton,  Earl  of,  and  Shake- 
speare, 72. 
Southwark,  the  Globe  Theatre  at, 

227. 


INDEX 


251 


Spenser,  Edmund,  Beeston's  gossip 
of,  67. 

Steevens,  George,  character  of, 
191 ;  a  forged  letter  by,  192,  193, 

Sterne,   Laurence,  in  France,  200. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  his  imaginary 
discovery  of  lost  works  by 
Shakespeare,  25. 

Stratford-ou-Avon,  Shakespeare's 
tomb  at,  50;  Betterton  at,  73; 
visitors  from  Oxford  to,  75,  76, 
77 ;  Shakespeare  tradition  at, 
75,  76;  Shakespeare  memorials 
at,  218;  destruction  of  Xew 
Place,  221;  the  Monumental 
Committee  of,  221;  sale  of 
Shakespeare's  Birthplace,  222 ; 
purchase  of  New  Place  site, 
223;  the  Birthplace  Trust,  223, 
224. 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  his  love  for 
Shakespeare,  71. 

Sudermann,   135. 

Tate,  Nahum,  his  adaptations  of 
Shakespeare,  103,  104. 

Taylor,  Joseph,  original  actor  in 
Shakespeare's  plays,  62;  coached 
by  Shakespeare  in  part  of  Henry 
VIII,  63,  71,  72. 

Theatres  in  Elizabethan  London, 
36;  seating  arrangements,  39; 
prices  of  admission,  39;  the 
scenery  on  the  stage,  40;  the 
costumes,  41 ;  contrast  between 
their  methods  of  production 
and  those  of  later  date,  44;  at 
Restoration,  86 ;  characteristics 
of,  87-90.     See  also  Playhouses. 

Theatrical  Review  of  1763,  190. 


Theatrical  spectacle  in  Shake- 
spearean drama,  effect  of  ex- 
cess, 3;  its  want  of  logic,  4;  its 
costliness,  7  ;  at  the  Restoration, 
89,  108;  at  the  present  day,  109. 

Thomson,  James,  French  study  of, 
201. 

Tuke,  Sir  Samuel,  his  Adventures 
of  Five  Hours,  98,  99. 

Vanbrugh,  Sir  John,  91. 

Veronese,  Paolo,  statue  of,  233. 

Victoria,  Queen,  and  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  222 ;  statues  of,  237. 

Vienna,  production  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  at  the  Burg-Theater, 
17 ;  types  of  subsidised  theatres 
at,  136,  138;  conservatoire  of 
actors  at,  139. 

Voltaire,  on  Shakespeare,  205,  206. 

War,  popular  view  of,  177. 
Ward,  John,  vicar  of  Stratford-on- 

Avon,  74;  his  Diary,  74. 
Warner,   Mrs.,  at  Sadler's   Wells, 

11. 
Wellington,    Duke    of,    monument 

to,  238. 
Westminster  Abbey,  Shakespeare's 

exclusion    from,    50;    his    ceno- 
taph in,  215-16. 
Will,  freedom  of,  166. 
Women,    Shakespeare's   views    on, 

168. 
Wordsworth,      William,       French 

study  of,  201. 
Wycherley,  William,  91. 

Young,  Edward,  French  study  of, 
201. 


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